Building a business with little to no capital can be very difficult but if you know what you’re doing, there are strategies you can put in place to start a business without money, make profit and grow it from scratch through thick and thin.
I am saying this because I have been there. When I started my first business more than 7 years ago, I had nothing except my pocket money. Yeah I know you think that’s cliché but frankly, I had nothing. I was just a struggling student in sophomore year, looking for a way to survive.
So, I started something from scratch. From part of my pocket money, I started my first a website for my first brand which sadly failed after one year. But I learned. And then I started the second website after some savings. And almost a decade later, this brand has gone on to impact people around the world.
Like I said earlier, there are some strategies you can put in place to build your own brand from scratch with little to no cash. And in this guide, I am going to share some of these strategies with you, in the following paragraphs.
Get a Goal & Business Plan
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To start a proper business without money, you need to clearly identify your business goal and then create a solid business plan.
Like even if you don’t have a business capital, have a goal you want to achieve and a plan on how you’re going to get to achieve that goal and the timeline.
I know a number of businesses that started out without a specific goal or a decent business plan. My first business was one. It was a great idea in my head. I had a goal, to make money but there was no clear plan on how to achieve that.
I know more than a dozen businesses that started this way too. And just like my first brand, most of these businesses could not live up to their potential because there was no road map to get to that potential in the first place.
If you want to start a business without capital and make a success out of it, you need a clear business goal and a solid plan. You need a plan that outlines the specific goals you want to achieve with your brand and the realistic steps that will lead to that achievement.
Without this, you might as well be preparing to be counted in the large number of failed businesses out there.
Plan with your Personal Savings
Starting a business without capital can be very difficult but to make things easier for you, work on planning your business with your own personal savings.
This strategy has helped a lot of brands in developing countries without a decent access to loans. Planning with your personal savings gets you something to build from scratch.
With your business already up and running, you can easily get others to partner or support you.
For some businesses, all you need to do with your personal funds is to funds the most basic and vital aspects of the business that can get it off the ground.
This could be things like getting a domain name and hosting, designing graphics for the business or setting up the brand or social media advertising.
Whatever it is, identify, the easiest things you can get done with your best resources that will also have the largest impact on your business, start with these things and then you can hit the road.
And again, with a business that’s already up and running, it gets easy to attract partners, investors, grants and sponsors, compared to waiting for these things. So, this is one of your best shot to start from scratch.
Go for Grants
There are a number of grants for entrepreneurs desiring to start a business without money. Depending on the viability of your idea, you can get these grants to start your business without having to refund them.
If you’re in a developed country, it gets even easier as there are a lot of options there. In a developing country on the other hand, you might have limited options but you can still get something started with the few that you have.
Whether you’re going for grants or not, I’d prefer that you have something started perhaps from your own pocket money or however you want it. This makes it easier to attract grants and funding in some instances.
PS: While applying for grants, you want to consider the pros and cons and how this can impact your business and your own resolve to build. Also, you want to apply for as much grants as you can.
Build a Website
Getting a website is a very crucial strategy you must have in place if you plan to start a business without money.
Remember in my opening story I mentioned how getting started with a website was one of the biggest strokes that got my brand in front of my target audience? Well this strategy has also proved to be very effective for many other brands. Yes!
Outside needing a website to showcase your portfolio, product, services or whatever business you’re offering, you also need a platform where you can drive qualified traffic over to your brand.
This is why getting a website is very important. Even if this is one of the key things you want to do with your personal savings, do it.
Get a custom domain that matches your preferred brand name, get a hosting account and set up your website. Where you can’t do it yourself, hire web design experts to get the job delivered for you.
As soon as this is sorted, build with catchy images and powerful words that will get your potential clients to check you out.
Have your website optimized for the search engine, showcase your portfolio and then get it to deliver on your next new clients.
Implement Social Media Marketing
As someone planning to start a business without money, social media marketing is one of the most powerful free marketing strategies you can use to attract organic traffic and visibility to your brand.
It’s worked for my brands and thousands of other brands on a shoestring budget. And you can make this a core part of your marketing.
To get this done, you don’t have to be on all social media platforms. Identify the top social media platforms with the largest number of your target audience. Create a handle on these platforms with your brand.
As soon as this is all done, check out other brand similar to yours to understand the content they are creating and their performance.
This will give you an idea on the kind of content your target audience should expect from you. You can then begin to create and share this kind of content with your audience.
PS: Link your website to your website and also, take steps to share your website content on your social media handles at intervals.
Engage in Content Marketing
Content marketing is the art of creating and sharing a specific kind of content for a well identified audience in order to create a specific outcome.
This is one of the top strategies with high returns on investment that any new entrepreneur can use to start a business without capital.
Since you already have a website and social media handles, you can use content marketing strategies to create and share content on these platforms so you can further drive visibility and traffic for your brand.
Before you get started with content marketing, you want to identify your target audience, find out the content that matters to them and the best ways you can serve them this content in a way that will get them coming back to your platforms for more.
After that, start creating the content. Be sure you’re going the extra mile to add a lot of value to your content in a way that your content will definitely meet the entertainment, information, educational or any specific needs of your target audience.
In addition to that, you want your content to get as much visibility as possible so you want to take steps to implement specific search engine optimization strategies like using target keywords, backlinks, technical optimizations etc.
With this in place, your dream of starting a business with no money gets well taken care of in terms of marketing as targeted content marketing can generate organic and sustainable traffic that will eventually lead to conversions.
Use Storytelling for Positioning
If you’re building a service based business like we did, storytelling could be one of the powerful tools you can use to start a business without money.
It gets you the chance to position your business exactly as you want it, before your target audience.
As a beginner, this was our super power, back in the early days. With no portfolio, no work experience but just the skills, using strategic storytelling got our brand journey, experience and expertise right in front of our target audience. It got us our first few clients with zero marketing budgets.
As a business on a budget, you can use storytelling as part of your marketing strategy to improve your likeability, build trust and position your brand as the expert that should be listened to.
The good thing about storytelling is that you can use it as part of your marketing. From your website to your social media handles, you can use this strategy to give a boost to your content, turning them from bland phrases to powerfully relatable pieces stories, ideas and solutions that will serve the needs of your target audience.
Final Words
A number of entrepreneurs have found interesting strategies to start a business with no money except a few bucks, regardless of their location and you can do the same, if you’re going to use these strategies.
Like I mentioned earlier, starting a business with little to no cash is not a walk in the park. It’ll demand your effort, persistence and grit. You might even have some missteps here and there but if you’re ready to use these as learning opportunities, you’ll evolve your own strategies to do it even better.
Again, while going solo, be open to learning, find a mentor or small business community where you can learn and share ideas. Pay attention to data and use insights generated from your initiatives to evolve your strategies.
Where you don’t have the right skills to build a business around, sign up for trainings to get the necessary skills here, intern or work with experts to learn more, be intentional in getting this to work and you will find a way around it.
Now it’s your turn. What are some of your challenges when it comes to starting a business without capital? Drop your comments below.
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