You have an award-winning idea, and you are ready to take the world by storm, but you are on a budget or you may have no budget. You could just turn your back and walk away from this moment of inspiration or you could pull yourself up and start your business with no money.
The first thing you might tell yourself is that this is impossible, “I can’t start my own business with no money.” That negative voice inside you has a point, but tell it this, “Half of all businesses that are funded with all the money in the world fail!” They crash and burn in a flaming heap, leaving behind only dust.
On the other hand, many businesses are started with very little financial means and explode into huge financial empires. Is there a risk in trying to start a business from scratch with no money? Certainly, but there is risk in starting any venture, or anything for that matter, that you have not tried before.
There is nothing wrong with starting out small. In fact, it is a great way to test your idea to see if it is feasible with the least amount of risk.
Let’s say you want to open a craft store. Start with your own handmade wares and sell them at work, to friends and family members. In this way, you can test your market and work some of the production bugs out of your process. Then, you can test your offerings in the world by placing your items for sale on Etsy and eBay, and if you fare well there, branch off with your own web site. In this way, you can prove your idea and self-fund your business as you go, reinvesting your own profits as you are working to opening your store and building your empire one step upon the other.
There you have it. It is happening every day, and you can apply this principle of starting out exceedingly small, testing out your market approach, working out the kinks, building one layer upon the other, reinvesting your profits, and continually moving to the next level, until you reach your intended destination.
Use Free Business Startup Resources Online
You would be surprised to find out how many free tools there are on the Internet that you can use to test and build your business.
Simply think about what you might need to get your business going, and instead of thinking that you need to have it in the real world, like hiring somebody, or buying equipment, think instead of ways you can apply these principles to your virtual business that you are building online look for resources that are free to use – and use them!
Almost everything is there. Use Facebook, Etsy, and eBay. Need a graphic artist for marketing materials? Check out Canva and do it yourself. And the stuff that it looks like there is just no way around having to pay for it? Trade for it. More surprises will appear as you open yourself to opportunities you did not even know were there for the asking.
And you will also be impressed with what people are willing to do to help you out for as little as $5.00 on fiverr.com.
Next, you have to focus on building your business for nearly nothing.