Seven-Year Bootstrap Journey

A story about how Audie Attar bootstrapped his company Paradigm for 7 years without taking a salary.

"For the first 7 years of Paradigm, I didn't take a paycheck. I was paying team members and staff before I was paying myself. My wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, had a job and we were literally maxed out on credit cards.

People lose sight of that. It's a war of attrition - you have to be able to withstand all of it and really believe in what you're doing. You have to eat shit sandwiches daily on your way there.

Even when you have huge success, you still try to do right and take care of people, but sometimes no good deed goes unpunished. But ultimately you have to be able to withstand all of it and really believe in what you're doing."