We have been fortunate over these past months to have had enough money to stay comfortable and continue to push forward with our startup aspirations.

In no way have we been free spenders, and a “staycation” is in the literal sense that we stay home and take it easy. Having a global pandemic sure helped to ease any temptation or FOMO as we have been fine staying home!

The one purchase that we made that has continued to provide hours and hours of entertainment for our family was an inexpensive 1080p LED projector off of Amazon. We spend around $120 and now watch all of our movies and live sports on the wall of our living room. This little investment has kept us sane and entertained, but also developed a new family tradition of “family movie night” where was watch a movie together as we each take turns picking what we watch.

Life can be simple, fulfilling, and inexpensive at the same time.

Original post:

One thing that you probably hear about entrepreneurs is that they have to cut back spending a ton, where some even end up sleeping under their desks and eat instant ramen everyday. There is definite truth in having to save up so your fledgling company can survive its earliest days.

We are no different, but being an older founder with a family does not make a lot of sense to cut back so drastically. Feeding a child ramen day in and day out would likely be considered neglect and frowned upon. However, the reality of a tight runway is no different in my case.

With the ongoing holiday season, and with the pandemic environment, we decided to keep expenses to a minimum and opted to not buy a Christmas tree and keep presents to a minimum. I had a last minute idea for a gift for my son, so I went out to search to see if any stock was left anywhere. After a number of stops, I came home with a free tree and a steeply discounted gift. We have certainly been blessed.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas, and a Happy Holidays for whatever else you may celebrate!

Vulnerable Founder was the name of a blog (and podcast) that I put together while working on our first idea for digital content creators, from December 2020 through March 2021. We decided to shut down our old app, so I’m bringing highlighted posts from that blog here to our new one on Substack with short updates on the same topic.