can i start a business with no money

Can I Start A Business With No Money?

Do you have that buzzing great business idea but you are forced to let it be because of no or little capital? Well, starting a business with no capital is going to be a hell of a task.

Many people dream of self-employment but are only in a position to start a business with no money. It can be done, but you need to have a very positive mind-set, great marketing skills, the ability to draw on friends and family, and be prepared to duck and weave in the market place to keep ahead of businesses with greater capital than your business.

Service businesses are probably the easiest because they don’t require inventory. Dropshipping e-commerce stores are the same. You will, however, need the basics, such as branding, a website and social media channels, as well as help growing along the way. A graphic designer, for example, only really needs an iMac/MacBook and a subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud. Using their skills, the designer can build his/her own website and market themselves. A virtual assistant is another industry that takes very little capital to start with.

Start With What You Have

The first step is to start with the question, “What do I have and who do I know?”. This question helps you to know what you need (resources) and the people or organizations you should relate with. Carefully examine these facts and consider how you can put them to work fast and effectively to create a product or service that the market needs.

Consider the following:

Skills – what are your core capabilities? What can you do yourself and what can you offer?

Experience – what experience do you have related to the venture?

Knowledge – what do you know?

Tangible resources – what do you possess and what do you have access to?

Friends and family – do you have people in your life who can help you with their products and services for free or for “mates rates”?

You can then experiment using different combinations of resources to check the feedback of the market to different products and services. This approach enables an entrepreneur to achieve his/her long term goals by taking resources, contingencies, and connections into account.

Look for Start-Up Business Funding

Starting a business isn’t going to only depend on your skills and knowledge. You will need to market your product/services, produce, create a business structure, set up systems for accounts and customers. These all call for some capital. Accessing start-up finance is becoming more and more difficult, many start-ups end up looking for other alternatives like loan applications and other sources.

ALC commercial provides you with a great opportunity to access the necessary funds to grow your business. We offer fast and flexible start-up business loans that are geared towards your business needs.

Only Invest What You Can Afford To Lose

Listening to most of the successful business entrepreneurs, you will notice that nearly all of them risked some amount of money into the business. The few who risked investing everything ended up asking for small survival loans from friends and relatives.

Don’t risk everything

Most of the time we end up saying that, “I am going to invest this amount and expect this kind of return”. What if the prediction doesn’t go as planned? It is always advisable that you decide how much you can afford to lose and put it in your business and see if it can work. If it doesn’t, well you did afford the loss. Congratulations! Investing what you can afford to lose helps you maintain the business flexibility and lessen the management stress. Creating a workable exit strategy is really important if things don’t go as planned.

Experiment and Adapt

For your business to outstand in the vast and harsh world of business competition, a mindset of agility must be a priority. You should be able to be quick at responding to changes in the business environment and your business structure must be robust enough to sustain these changes.

Types of new businesses to start with little or no capital

Not all business ideas can be started with little or no capital, some like electronic companies require a very huge amount of capital to start. These businesses typically have certain characteristics. They mostly fall under one or two of the categories listed below:

Service businesses

This kind of business depends on the skills and time of the entrepreneur starting the business. One can make their skills available to others with relatively little or no investment. To start a service business you simply need the tools of your business.

Events-based businesses

They are a little more complicated but can still be started with little capital. These businesses include ventures that put on expos, sports events and concerts. The benefit of such businesses is that with proper marketing strategy, you can be able to sell the tickets before you incur the major costs, thus, reducing the amount of capital required to keep the venture afloat.

Brokerage businesses

This is one of the most popular kinds of ventures for entrepreneurs with little capital. These are the link between buyers and sellers. Brokers are well distributed across multiple industries, from real estate, hospitality, recruitment, and sports, to speakers and performing artists and the list goes on. The secret to being effective in brokerage businesses is having contacts and cherishing relationships, and effective marketing on both sides of the business i.e. buyers and sellers.

Performance-based businesses

These depend on the creative skill of the entrepreneur combined with the ability to market those skills to an extensive audience. Talented people like musicians, singers, comedians and motivational speakers all have the potential to create performance-based businesses.

Education and Training

This is another business venture where people find opportunities with little or no capital. Anyone with skills and passion to deliver knowledge and help others develop can easily move into education.

Final Thoughts

As seen above, starting a business with no or little capital is possible, but you need the right entrepreneurial skills, mindset and strong work ethic to endure the ups and downs of self-employment.

For more information on business loans, commercial finance, debt consolidation, bad credit business loans and low-doc business loans talk to our experienced and understanding loan specialists to see how our business loans can support your business goals.

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