Top Tips for Starting a Business – with No $$$ Money !!!
“Free” (or low cost) enterprise empowers entrepreneurs who have imagination and come up with great ideas, have talented, motivated workers, who are not afraid to take the risk (often on their own $$$) with Customers – who are also willing to take the risk of a new product.
Topics: Legal & Talent Issues, Pre-Sell, Sourcing Talent, Advantage of no $$$, Marketing, Launch, Grated: Don’t avoid “free” $$$.
Author Tyler Denk, Co-Founder launched VentureStorm as a two dead broke Co-Founder college students by starting a business -with absolutely no money. We’ve gone to incredible lengths to stretch every dollar and be as frugal as possible as a Boot-Strapped company.
Legal & Talent Issues.
Before you have a product, costumers, or revenue, you don’t need to file to become an LLC or C-Corp or whatever. It costs money to do so, and you’ll end up paying taxes on it as well. Step one is building the product. Being that it is a tech company, it’d be advantageous to either have a technical background yourself, or partner with someone who does.
Do you need $$$ ??? You don’t need money to build the product. Assuming it’s a software tech company, you can write code and build the foundation of your company at no cost aside from you and/or your partner’s time – the Sweat Equity you are building.
1. Sell before you have a Product.
This goes hand in hand with building a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), so you can become a MVP – Mighty Valuable Person – LoL. Before dedicating hundreds of hours to build your product, you can sell potential customers on your solution. Contact a few Customers in your Target Market and pitch them on your product – as if it’s already built. Are people interested in what you are building? If so, don’t hesitate to ask for money. Tell them by purchasing an account now, they will receive a significant discount compared to when it launches.
Pre-Orders. There are different strategies to approach this. It’s essentially accepting pre-orders for your product. If you do it well, then that kind of moves you out of the ‘starting a tech startup with no money’ situation in the early stages. At the very least, it’ll help a good bit and provide some flexibility & validation.
2. Sourcing Talent.
Whether you need talent to initially build your product, or additional talent as you begin to grow your team & scale, there are plenty of options available. To find co-founders you could attend Meetup events [like my www.meetup.com/entrepreneur-733/ in San Jose] or leverage your network for those with the skills you need. The best way to compensate them is with Equity Shares, but don’t be too generous.
I built VentureStorm to solve this exact problem and assist others in this situation. We allow entrepreneurs & startups to seamlessly connect with talented developers interested in working with startups. It’s not uncommon to see many transactions to be primarily equity based for co-founder positions – so there are options available to source talent without paying for it at the time – when you have not extra $$$.
3. Marketing your completed Product.
Most people think building the product is the hardest part. It’s not. Once you have a finished product you are really just getting started. The most important thing is reaching people to tell them about your product. Many startups who raised millions in pre-launch are typically spoiled and will immediately pour thousands into Ad campaigns and get marginal results.
4. The advantage of no $$$. Having no money puts you at a dis-advantage in some respect, but will teach you how to Guerrilla market [Research it] and get to know your customers personally + what they want & need. My team & I have utilized the toughest techniques to reach our users, and have become “experts” at growing our user base without spending any money. Find out where your Target Market spends their time online and assimilate yourself into those Social Media communities or Apps.
Facebook, InstaGram, LinkedIN, Twitter, Flicker, SnapChat, Tumblr
Specific topics on Quora (a Q&A community) – who published this article
Websites/platforms specific to your Target Market.
5. Launch your Product
on sites that are “free” to use and could result in a lot of publicity or user growth. You may even go “viral”.
o Product Hunt, HackerNews, BetaList.
Make a Presentation or just attend an appropriate Meetups – that involve your Target Market and “network” to make personal connections of people who may be able to help you or you help them.
o Form mutually beneficial partnerships with companies and organizations.
6. Don’t avoid Opportunities for “free” Money $$$.
There is actually a lots of money available out there – for free in many instances. When we launched VentureStorm while in college, we received a decent amount of equity-free Grant money for applying to different Grants and winning Pitch competitions. Most universities have similar opportunities. (check yours out). Outside of college campuses, there is Grant money available from many organizations. There are plenty of Pitch competitions available nation-wide and locally. Depending on how confidene you’re feeling, you could always get a PT job on the weekends to provide money for your startup venture.
Our Success. We were fortunate to secure some Grant money (although not much), which helped us sustain the company in times when growth was slow. However, we have maintained operating the company at a extremely low cost due to many of the techniques described above. Give them a try yourself. I think you’ll be pleased.
Comments: Do you any other Techniques to use to use no or little $$$ to startup.
from Quora.com 09 Mar 17 enhanced by Peter/CXO Wiz4biz
For more Info, click on Starting a Business.
“I love what Silicon Valley does. I love company building. I love startups. I love technology companies. I love new technology. I love this process of invention. Being able to participate in that as a product Creator, Founder or as an Investor or a board member, I just find that hugely satisfying.” —Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape