You may have spotted the new header on Syntagma today. It’s a move away from the Romanesque capitals we’ve had for a while into an upper/lower case format with a different typeface (font) altogether.

The sub-header “The Vantage Point” also drops the company descriptions that more properly belong to Syntagma Media than the Syntagma webtitle. It’s been bugging me for a while, now it’s done.

You may guess that this is part of the ongoing reorganization and redefinition of the business prior to incorporation. You will be right.

In previous posts I’ve looked at creating a digital network out of own-resources – bootstrapping — as a way of avoiding the venture capital squeeze — bear-hugging. Now it’s time for some specifics.

Lately, we’ve been looking back over the past 16 months of Syntagma Media’s existence and attempting to work out the full cost of the operation in monetary terms. Remember, it’s been done without VC finance, bank or Angel loans or equity sales of any kind. The only aid has been a credit card, which is cleared at the end of every month. Clearly someone must have borne the full cost.

We calculated all the costs of setup, fees for advice, authoring, design, general tech, plus all the usual business stuff. I also added in my own cost and resources at my standard consultancy rate. The sweep mainly included Syntagma Digital, but also the much smaller liabilities of Dial Publishing — our incubating print arm.

The total cost to my personal exchequer came to $250,000.

I must confess I was a little taken aback by that number. I hadn’t realized I had that amount of loose change floating about. But accountancy doesn’t lie.

Of course, there has been a good deal of income, especially in the past 6 — 9 months. All of that has also gone back into the business. So the bottom line sits on the question : is Syntagma Digital worth more than a quarter of a million bucks?

I’ll let you into a secret, I was offered more than that around four months ago, but the deal involved running someone else’s British business.

Setting up a digital content business then doesn’t come cheap. The fact is, we could have spent considerably more as, for example, our near contemporary b5media has. It’s very much a matter of priorities and some fine calculation of whether a particular expenditure will be cost-effective or not. In my experience (16 months worth) most expenditures are not.

Refining the art of spending is therefore top of the agenda when it comes to bloodsucking your business — I use that term instead of bootstrapping here because it helps to know that it’s your blood the business is sucking. That knowledge alone concentrates the mind wonderfully.

Finale : Sixteen months in, $250,000 down, working like a sugar-cane cutter, no end in sight. Is it all worth it? Wait for the book*. All the killer facts are there.

* The Syntagma Story by John M Evans to be published by Dial Publishing later this year.

The great benefit of being open about the building of Syntagma Media as a business and as a digital network is that the posts I write here can easily form the kernel of a book. Indeed they do : The Syntagma Story, to be published by Dial Publishing later this year.

The other less obvious advantage is that it may, in some small way, help others following along the same path. There are lots of pitfalls in this business and sometimes a word to the wise can avert an inevitable disaster.

None more so than in the area of finance. So here are a few notes — nothing more at this stage — on this potential minefield for all businesses.

I’ve long been an advocate of self-dependence in business, particularly at the startup and early stages. This is sometimes called “bootstrapping” in the sense of “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps”.

I’ve always preferred “self-resourcing” — using own-resources for the seed funding stage. Thereafter, in an ideal situation, income will fund growth and the business will be self-financing. All other sources of spending muscle introduced into the pot should be treated like fissile material — with great caution.

The power of own-resources can vary, of course, but every time you use the resources of others, whether debt or by share sale, you reduce your power to control the business. Indeed, once the venture capitalists move in you’ve set yourself up for eventual sale or an IPO (Initial Public Offering on the stock market).

Either way, you can no longer look forward to building a business that can be handed down the generations. Unless, of course, you do what Evan Williams did with Odeo and buy back the shares from investors. He had recently sold Blogger.com to Google so was not short of a bob or two. [Update Feb 20 :] Evan Williams has just put Odeo up for sale.

Another own-resource you’ll need to use early on is your brain. Many of the tasks in even a simple business are expensive to outsource. Building a digital network is painstakingly complex, so you’ll need to be up to serverside delvings, setting up websites, understanding WordPress code, even designing your own inventory. Add to that, the ability to write the first few webtitles, and it comes down to an intimidating package of learning curves to master.

That takes time, and you just have to grin and bear it. Later, you’ll have the cash to induct new writers and splash out on fancy designers, but not at first, unless your credit card limit will bear it.

Those first few sites — Syntagma had 12, all written by me — will mature in the first year and provide the income to grow thereafter. If you bring writers in from the start, you’ll not generate that early supply of funding, especially as a new network needs to offer a good share of the pot in order to attract dependable authors.

If it’s just making money you’re after, you may think the VC route is no bad thing. But if, like me, you build a business for the sheer challenge and exhilaration of it (and as an aid to your writing career), you may not wish to sell chunks of it to often fixed-tracked minds with very different aims from your own.

I’m not saying that VCs are primitive people necessarily, some are extraordinarily civilized : Rick Segal, Fred Wilson and Jason Calacanis (now with Sequoia Capital) spring to mind.

Bootstrapping, though, is not for someone looking for very quick results. If you really are a digital farmer looking for a big buyout, go the venture route by all means. Be aware though, the pitching period is gruelling and long, maybe up to four months even for a relatively small sum. This is because the VCs are already anticipating further rounds of funding. First they put masking tape on your mouth, then they start cutting lengths of twine to restrain your hands, followed by thick ropes to thoroughly encase the rest of your body.

I’m told some people enjoy being trussed up like a turkey, but you may have other ideas.

Bootstrapping a business is for the buccaneers, those swashbucklers who could just as easily appear in a pirate movie. Or else they’re so cashstrapped, there’s no alternative to penny-pinching their way to the top.

So it all comes down to those old antagonists : Time and Money.

If you’re time-rich but cash-poor, bootstrapping is made for you — make sure you have a decent limit on your credit card, though. If you’re cash-rich but time-poor why on earth would you want to start a business in the first place?

Unless, of course, you’re a pirate with a pen — like me.

There’s been a bit of a hiatus here at Syntagma since the weekend. Our 1.11 recurring posts per day have been conspicuous by their absence.

We’ve been working intensively on Thord’s new design for the network. We’ve just finished the alpha stage and we’re into the beta version this afternoon.

If that works, we’ll be going live here by tomorrow or the weekend.

I must say it’s beginning to look rather splendid — as you would expect from a Thord Hedengren Special. It comes in four templates : one each for sites attached to our three network magazines, plus a neutral version for sites which don’t fit into any one of our mag spots.

We’ll also have new logos following on from the design.

Business leaders, Captains of Industry and advertisers, form an orderly queue, please.

We have been preparing for our ultimate incorporation for some months, pausing only to ensure we have the right balance of elements and sufficient profitability to sustain a much larger operation. However, with our new design currently in hand by Thord Hedengen, it seemed the right moment to declare our new structure, which will be progressively implemented in the second quarter of the year.

Syntagma Media will split into two operating divisions. The first, Syntagma Digital, will contain all our online properties — some 53 websites — including, three network magazines and the (currently) top secret plans codenamed, iSyntagma.

The second new division of Syntagma Media is named Dial Publishing and will handle all print and other offline publishing and consulting work. This side of the business is set to swing into action in Q3 and Q4 of this year.

It always amazes me the amount of work involved in changing even the smallest sliver of a fully-functioning business, so we do this sparingly at all times.

But the time has come to launch : Syntagma Digital.