I'd highly, highly recommend reading this intro article to understand the context around how this came to be.
How it Works
This is not just a newsletter.
You will be joining an active network of builders and supporters who are eager to grow and sustain the bootstrapped economy.
The newsletter is just a medium to structure our efforts.
You are expected to be an active participant in the network, because this only gets as good as our collective participation.
To drive home this point, this is a (not-for-profit) paid newsletter - $5 / month - to symbolically remind you each month that you've chosen to invest your time in this and be an active participant in building this network.
These funds are used to cover the small operating costs (domain, email and newsletter platform) and the remaining proceeds are donated to one or more bootstrapped open source projects.
Format
When you as a bootstrapped founder or supporter subscribe to the newsletter, you will get a monthly email in this format along with some action items for you:
3 Featured Bootstrapped Products
Your ask as a member will be to evaluate how you can use these products in your own product.
Or if you can help make an intro to someone who might find the product useful, now or in the future.
You are encouraged to actively talk about the product in your social channels, with your colleagues, your own personal networks or wherever you seem fit, regardless of how large/small your network is - at scale it all adds up.
You are encouraged to reach out to the founders directly and share your feedback.
Crucially, you are helping create a network effect for your fellow founders.
Top 3 Learnings / Updates from your Fellow Founders
The goal of this section is to highlight the good and the not so great parts of the journey of building a bootstrapped company.
If any of these resonate with you, you are encouraged to tweet about it and share your own stories.
You are helping create buzz around interesting topics for your fellow bootstrapped founders - more network effects.
Reached an important milestone you've been tracking, share it with the network. Launching on Product Hunt? Let the network know.
3 Asks/Gives from You to Your Fellow Founders
You as a founder might have a question or need, that you want to ask other members of the network.
Say you want to hire a good freelancer, need an intro to person X, you want to know who the best point of contact at company Y is, etc.
Ask the network.
Or may be you're feeling generous about offering something of value to the network.
Tell the network about it.
Thinking about selling your bootstrapped business? May be someone in the network knows someone who might be interested.
Participating
Once you subscribe, if you would like to participate in an upcoming newsletter edition, in any of the sections I listed above, email me at hello@bootstrapped.network.
This is an ambitious experiment, but what if it just works and creates a solid network effect for bootstrapped founders?