Start A Business with Little or No Money

By Joseph Molina www.vccsd.org

Start-up Funds are essential when it comes to starting a business.

A steady stream of money (cash flow) is vital to the growth of any business. For new businesses, a good amount of startup capital can be a huge differencemaker. When combined with other important aspects such as a solid business plan; good marketing strategies; ingenious thinking and hard work, the sky is the limit. While many would love the idea of starting up their dream business ventures, they all abandon the idea when faced with the most important question—Where and how to get startup capital. This continuous to be one of the biggest obstacles for new entrepreneurs. Let’s look at some ideas on how to strat a business with little or no money down.

1. IDENTIFY A NEED

This is very important when starting a new business. For you to make money, you need to identify what your potential customers really need (and want). You can do this by examining your immediate environment. What are the immediate needs of people there? What are they willing to spend money on? You could also expand your reach to State or region wide. Thankfully, the internet has made data collection easier. Knowing about peoples’ needs would give you a great strating point.

2. START WITH WHAT YOU KNOW

Another important thing that can lead to your success in business is starting with what you already know. While anyone can go into any form of business, starting with your current set of the skills, passion, interest and or knowledge will give you an advantage.

*Tip: You can also start in the same business as your day job since you already have some experience and mostlikely a good set of skills.

3. ESTIMATE YOUR STARTUP COST

Estimate the cost of setting up and running your business within a foreseeable time frame. To do this, calculate the cost of all the necessary items needed. Include the cost of Start-up expenses like website, software, memberships, legal expenses, etc. These costs are only temporary estimates and can be changed in the long run as your business grows.

4. INFORM EVERYONE ABOUT YOUR NEW BUSINESS

Even though you are starting small, it shouldn’t limit your reach. You have to reach as many people as possible. You may want to tell your family members, friends, and people in your community about your new business.

*Tip: It is a good idea to create a press release that can be distributed all over your Region.

5. USE THE INTERNET

Create social media accounts for your business. Social media is key. Make sure to differentiate personal profile from business profile. This gives your business a more professional outlook. Cross-promote on these five major platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn and engage with your followers to create a community. They will help you promote your busines faster! Create a website. It is crucial that you create a nice clear website, make sure to based your website on what other businesses in your market look like.

*Tip: Don’t have to use a webdeveloper from the start, use a website template like wix, weebly, wordpress are just some of the options. These website services also offer hosting and domain name search, it makes it easier when you have all the services with one provider.

6. SEEK FOR EXTRA FUNDS

You may need to seek funding to get you started. Make sure you really need the funds as loans are expensive and in many cases not necessary, at least during the start up process. Be innovative on ways to create revenue form the start.

Here are some ideas you may want to consider:

• Offer pre-sell – This approach allows you to pre-sell an item before having a large inventory. • Provide memberships - This allows you collect funds before having to have a large inventory.

• Offer discounts when people purchase multiple

itmes or recurring purchases – This again will allow you to collect funds faster.

Business grants. As hard as it could be to get grants, they are real and would be very helpful (they are free money actually). Be on the lookout for local grants available for your type of business.

Tax Credits. This is another “financing” option. For example, your bsuiess may receive tax credits for hiring Veterans (up to $9000 in some cases.