Entrepreneurship is the human distinctive.

It exists at the nexus of reflection, imagination, and action.

The world yields a fixed set of resources. Everything is scarce. Entrepreneurs turn limited inputs into novel solutions, and compound the value of what’s given.

Bootstrap Republic is a network of aligned founders, builders, and thinkers who recognize the vital role of entrepreneurs in American society. By articulating and defending the conditions that incentivize and reward entrepreneurship, we will make the world a better place.

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Manifesto

We believe in the right to get started. Entrepreneurship is a basic expression of human initiative – not a luxury activity. Laws should make it easy to try, cheap to fail, and possible to begin again. We oppose regulatory environments that entrench incumbents, protect rent-seekers, and exclude newcomers. We argue for simple, humane rules that lower the cost of launching, experimenting, and building.

  1. A simple tax code. Founders should be able to understand the tax code without hiring a professional. Every hour and dollar spent on compliance is one not spent building. The more complicated the code, the more it rewards those who can pay to navigate it.
  2. Makers over takers. When the surest path to wealth runs through legislators, entrepreneurs stop building and start lobbying. Every subsidy, carve-out, and no-bid contract takes from people who make things and gives to people who make calls. Wealth should come from serving customers, not capturing regulators.
  3. Buy anywhere. A founder should be able to buy the best input at the best price, wherever it's made. Tariffs are a tax on American builders, paid to protect a few. The businesses they help are large and easy to see. The ones they hurt are small, scattered, and far more numerous.
  4. Skills over permits. A growing share of Americans need government licenses to do their job, and most of those rules were written by people already in the trade to keep newcomers out. Private credentials prove competence without stopping anyone from trying. A state license on top of that adds cost and little else.
  5. No protected turf. Competition is how we find out whether something could be done better. When government is the only provider allowed, no one gets to try. That, more than the cost, is the real price of a monopoly. Public services should have to earn their customers like everyone else.
  6. Same rules, every year. Rules that change with every administration are a hidden tax. Founders bet years of their lives that the ground won't shift beneath them. Big companies hire lawyers and negotiate exemptions; small ones just don't start. We need fewer laws, written plainly, enforced the same for everyone, no matter who holds office.
  7. Free speech, free markets. Every new venture starts as an idea someone thinks is wrong. A society that limits what can be said limits what can be attempted. Free speech and free enterprise are the same freedom in different forms.

Essays

Founder

Nick Freiling is a serial entrepreneur. He’s currently Founder/CEO at StampFans. Previously, he founded and sold a market research firm. His clients include SpaceX, Axios, VSCO, P&G, Getaround, Stanford, and MIT, and the US State Department.