It might surprise you to know that there are actually ways to start a business with little or no money.
Jumia Travel, the leading online travel agency, shares four ways to start a business without money.
- Adjust your business model to demand fewer needs
If you can start your business as a sole employee please do so, pending when you are able to raise enough money to employ other professionals. Also, save the cost of getting and maintaining an office space by working from home, if having an office space is not vital to getting your business up and running. In addition, try to make your company more service-oriented because this kind of business requires little or no financial investment; all you really need are your skills and you can immediately get started providing these services. When you start getting some money, you can use the extra revenue to then grow and establish your business.
- Get friends and family to help
Tell your friends, family and even past colleagues about your business and get them to help spread the word about your business. This can serve as free marketing and publicity for your business. Encourage as many of them as possible to share your posts about your business on their social media profiles, and to also introduce your brand to their professional contacts. This will help serve as a kind of grassroots marketing that will spread the word about your company and introduce it to a larger audience.
- Avoid unnecessary expenses
Considering you are trying to start a business without money, you need to be as frugal as possible. Leverage on your relationships with people and try to get as much as you can for free, at least until you are able to start making some extra revenue to afford better for your business. Please note that as frugal as you are going to need to be, you should be careful not to let that compromise the quality of your services. This is why you really need to leverage on your business and even personal relationships, so you can get the help and professional input of these people for free (at least until you are able to make enough extra revenue to pay for their services).
- Ensure your payment policy is well thought out
This is the problem a lot of start-ups face; they don’t have a good payment policy. As a result, people take advantage of this weakness to either delay payments or avoid paying for the services altogether. Avoid basing your payment policy on what you think your customers want or will be comfortable with, base it on what is going to make your business operate successfully. This is because after all said and done, it’s not your payment policy that will keep people coming back for more; it’s the quality of your service. Therefore, you should not compromise your service quality and business operation, for an unfavourable payment policy.
