diff --git a/README.rst b/README.rst
index 78ab9f4916..5853bf57bb 100644
--- a/README.rst
+++ b/README.rst
@@ -70,6 +70,10 @@ requirements-dev.txt files.
 
 Ensure the virtual environment is enabled.
 
+.. code-block:: bash
+
+    source venv/bin/activate
+
 To generate requirements.txt:
 
 .. code-block:: bash
@@ -82,12 +86,17 @@ To generate requirements-dev.txt after requirements.txt has been generated:
 
 .. code-block:: bash
     ./configure --init --dev
-    source venv/bin/activate
     python etc/scripts/gen_requirements_dev.py -s venv/lib/python<version>/site-packages/
 
 Collecting and generating ABOUT files for dependencies
 ------------------------------------------------------
 
+Ensure that the dependencies used by ``etc/scripts/bootstrap.py`` are installed:
+
+.. code-block:: bash
+
+    pip install -r etc/scripts/requirements.txt
+
 Once we have requirements.txt and requirements-dev.txt, we can fetch the project
 dependencies as wheels and generate ABOUT files for them:
 
diff --git a/etc/scripts/utils_thirdparty.py b/etc/scripts/utils_thirdparty.py
index c0613c3af7..23e837ff84 100644
--- a/etc/scripts/utils_thirdparty.py
+++ b/etc/scripts/utils_thirdparty.py
@@ -2908,7 +2908,7 @@ def fetch_package_wheel(name, version, environment, dest_dir=THIRDPARTY_DIR):
 
 def check_about(dest_dir=THIRDPARTY_DIR):
     try:
-        subprocess.check_output(f'bin/about check {dest_dir}'.split())
+        subprocess.check_output(f'venv/bin/about check {dest_dir}'.split())
     except subprocess.CalledProcessError as cpe:
         print()
         print('Invalid ABOUT files:')