About Us
Welcome to Bootstrapped Ventures! A company based in Belgium, self-funded and ran by Birthe & Brecht, partners both in life and business.
Bootstrapped Ventures — A Short History
Bootstrapped Ventures was born in 2012, when Brecht decided he wanted to self-fund (or bootstrap) his own company and start various ventures. Having been fascinated by anything computer/tech/internet related since middle school, it wasn’t too long before several website and blog ideas were launched.
With WordPress as the foundation for most of those sites, it made sense to also learn building WordPress plugins, giving the ability to create solutions that solved his own needs.
A pivotal moment occurred in 2013 when Brecht decided to start a food blog. That website needed a great recipe plugin, and there wasn’t one to be found that satisfied all the needs. Out of that necessity, WP Ultimate Recipe was created. As others started using this recipe plugin, more and more time was spent on building that plugin, eventually growing into a full-time business.
By 2016, WP Ultimate Recipe had become the most popular recipe plugin for WordPress and Brecht decided to build a new recipe plugin completely from scratch. It might sound like a crazy idea, but after several years of working on WP Ultimate Recipe, a vision for a better foundation had formed and it would have been very difficult to shoehorn the existing plugin into this new idea.
With this new foundation in place, WP Recipe Maker has continued to grow and became the most popular recipe plugin for WordPress in its own right. With a few other WordPress plugins that grew alongside WPRM, Bootstrapped Ventures has a great portfolio of quality plugins to offer today. And plenty of ideas to make things even better in the future!
Birthe’s Ventures
While Brecht was starting out the company, Birthe was still studying and eventually gained experience at her first job. While IT does run in her family, it wasn’t what interested her. Instead, she loved tapping into her creativity to create things.
At her first job, that need to be creative wasn’t really satisfied, so she decided to quit and join Bootstrapped Ventures to help out where possible: blogging, marketing, administration, support, and anywhere else Brecht could use an extra hand. Quitting also meant that we both had remote jobs, which made us realise we could work while travelling. So in September 2015 we decided to leave on a round-the-world trip for about a year, which you can read all about on our Wandering the World blog.
Since joining in 2015, Birthe has worked on various aspects of the plugin business, while also starting her own projects. One of her main focuses today is By Birthe, selling greeting cards and other handmade products.
The Future of Bootstrapped Ventures
While you can never know what the future brings, we do love where the business is at today. It offers us the flexibility to engage in creative endeavors we are passionate about, from developing WordPress plugins to designing hand-lettered greeting cards.
We don’t take things for granted though! We cherish what we’ve built and are committed to staying ahead by offering the best support possible — Brecht has dedicated himself to working daily for years, showcasing our commitment. We also focus on continuous plugin updates, ensuring we meet and exceed our customers’ expectations.
We’re in it for the long haul, eagerly anticipating what the future holds and how we can continue to grow and evolve.