My startup journey consisted of incremental stages in terms of my financial growth. I started with some student loan money designated for books and learned some affiliate marketing arbitrage. The first day I spent $50 and made about $50 profit. I consistently doubled down my earnings for a few months until I had a pretty solid reserve. After about 2 years, I had decent amount of savings (in the low to mid six figures) and hadn't changed my lifestyle much at all. At this point I met my cofounders, who were in similar situations as myself, and we pooled most of our savings together to start our company.
Along the way I made several risky bets -- doubling down my money on more than one occasion -- but I was never really in that risky of a situation because I had so little to start with. I was just a relatively broke student with some student loan money.
"Along the way I made several risky bets -- doubling down my money on more than one occasion "
While not quite the same, your story reminded me of a story involving the Fedex founder gambling the last dollars in vegas and managing to make enough to continue the business:
Along the way I made several risky bets -- doubling down my money on more than one occasion -- but I was never really in that risky of a situation because I had so little to start with. I was just a relatively broke student with some student loan money.