For Entrepreneurs Who are Cash Poor
If you dream of starting your own business, you may feel you can’t because you don’t have a significant amount of cash. This can be discouraging, but many business have been “bootstrapped” into realization. That is, others have started with virtually no cash. What cash they did get was obtained using non-traditional methods. This can be you!
Avoid, like the plague, using credit cards to fund your business. Many people, unfortunately, manage their business finances like they do their personal finances and find themselves too deep in debt. You will get plenty of offers for business credit cards once you establish a federal employer identification number. I don’t recommend this as a resource for funding at all.
You may feel like you need an MBA to have the necessary knowledge to start a new business. Not so! Most of the information you need can be found for free online and at your public library. Learning to write a business plan, set up a marketing strategy, how to negotiate and find funding is all available to you for free. Additionally, seek out small business and entrepreneur groups to learn from and share with others more and less experienced than you.
In the beginning, much of what you need can be accomplished via “do it yourself” (DIY). So long as all of your materials look and function professionally, you can use free online templates to create inexpensive brochures and business cards. There are templates to help you set up your initial Web site and blog and you can also design a logo using online software!
Start incorporating social media into your marketing plan from the very beginning. This is free marketing. Join the major groups like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter and discuss what you do with your followers. Offer your input to others in a similar boat.
It is tempting to start hiring staff immediately but I don’t recommend it. Consider outsourcing as many of your tasks as possible. You can use a virtual assistant in the beginning fairly inexpensively. You can also outsource your marketing, accounting, IT and other tasks. You can continue using them long-term or replace with in-house staff as your business matures.
Part of almost any new venture are your computer needs and software can be expensive. Increasingly, businesses are using “cloud computing” (online applications) to accomplish what they used to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for in software. Take advantage of free bookkeeping and invoicing applications as well as word processing, spreadsheets, presentation, graphic design and more. You get unlimited storage space with many of these online apps as well.
In exchange for a small stake in your business or future stock options, an angel network might consider investing in your business. An angel network is made up of angel investors-wealthy individuals who invest in startups. Consider discussing your idea with one of these networks for some startup cash.
Don’t wait for perfection in your product or service. Get cash flow going as soon as possible. Good enough (not fatally flawed) is fine in the beginning and you can tweak your business and products as you get established. But the first order of business is definitely generating an income while keep expenses low.
