Starting a business in the US is one thing but starting a business in the US with little or no amount of money seems a bit far-fetched doesn’t it?
It might seem implausible but it’s certainly not impossible. And you’re going to discover today in this guide 20 slick steps that you can use to set up your business from nothing. So without further ado let’s delve in.
20 Steps To Start a Business With No Money in USA
1. Perform Elaborative Research
As with anything in life to possess a successful business one must be willing to research elaboratively and extensively to acquire crucial information.
Lack of information could prove extremely detrimental to the growth and success of your business. This is why you must be armed to the teeth with adequate information to offset the aforementioned incident.
2. Dissect Your Data
Performing elaborative research could be overwhelming because of the amount of information you’d encounter at first which might discourage you.
You can simply overcome this by processing information bits by bits, handle one area at a time. Researching like this is easier, faster, and less daunting.
3. Analyze Your Market And Challenges
After researching the market you wish to start your business you should be able to detect it’s strengths and weakness.
You should identify the common pitfalls and proffer solutions that you can use to offset them doing so gives you a greater chance of attaining success.
4. Assess Your Capital Requirements
Not all businesses require huge capital to start up, some businesses can even be operated in your garage.
Since you intend on starting a business with no money you’d probably be starting up small so there’s probably no need for you to worry about rent. You know what I mean.
5. Create A Business Idea
Before you even think of starting a business you must already have an idea in mind. Such an idea must be fresh, innovative, and creative to stand out because there’s competition in every niche, if there’s little or no competition in your desired niche it might be risky to start a business in that niche as it could signify a lack of prospects.
6. Create A Business Plan
When engaging in a voyage you are going to need a map that will guide you in the right direction to avoid getting lost. So when starting a business you a business map that will successfully direct you to your goals and that is called a “Business Plan”.
A typical business plan would contain your goals, the methods you’d utilize to attain such goals, and the period it would take to achieve them. It should be dynamic and regularly updated to Sync with the ever-changing customer taste.
Bluntly speaking a business plan is just as important as the business itself, if properly drafted it could skyrocket your business to success but if not, your business would suffer extremely.
7. Split It Into Stages
Remember I said that a business plan contains your goals, methodology, and timeframe. While it’s good to set-up a business plan it’s even better to split them into stages. Doing so will make achieving your goals relatively easier as you will be handling one stage at a time and it will make the process less daunting.
8. Continue Your Daily Job
Starting a business isn’t easy, talk less about starting a business WITHOUT MONEY. While it might seem stressful to be handling a business and still keep up with your 9-5 daily job, I’d say it’s worth it. Because unless your business is starting to make some progress it’s going to be hard to get some investors. That’s when your paycheck comes in.
That aside there’s every possibility that your business might not work out as planned and if that should happen you wouldn’t want you and your family to be stranded.
9. Engage In Bootstrapping
Doing this simply means starting up your business with resources available at the moment which may be skills, money, tools, etc. This method can be extremely useful when testing a business to obtain certain information about that business or to see how customers will react to a new product.
Whether you make a profit or score a loss, you’ve obtained your desired information without worrying about investors and borrowed money.
10. Offer A Service
Speaking of bootstrapping, one of the easiest ways to start a business with no money is to offer a service or services if you’re multi-talented.
All you need to do is promote yourself, spread the word to friends and family, and ask them to spread the word to their friends and family. Alert all your social media handles.
If the service you want to render is online-based like copywriting, paid guest blogging, web design, programming, etc. You should be active in forums related to your niche, prove you’re an expert, promote yourself, and do your best to own a personal website to showcase your portfolio.
This process is what most people consider freelancing and you can easily start on freelance platforms like fiver, Â Upwork, guru, people per hour just to name a few.
11. Begin With Something You Know
When bootstrapping it would be relatively easy, to begin with, something you know for example if you were an accountant in your place of work you could opt to offer accounting services to small businesses.
Or if you studied a business course you could opt to become a business consultant or Teacher.
12. Reinvest In Yourself/Business
As you continue to grow in your business you should consider investing in your business if you sell products or investing in yourself if you render services.
What I mean by this is that you should use some of your revenue buy more products, do more research, advertisement, register for courses to improve the quality and quantity of your goods/services.
13. Do All The Work Yourself
Since you want to start a business with no money you won’t be able to hire any employees which means you’ll have to do all the work yourself.
If you’re a lazy person I’d recommend you obtain the required capital to properly start a business so you can hire employees else be ready to put in a lot of work.
14. Find A Co-worker
“If you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far go together,” says the adage. It’s not a cliche and it’s very much applied to businesses.
As you go on you should try to find someone or people who are willing to work with you, not for the money but because they share your dream.
Finding this set of people can be difficult because you’ll have to prove to them why your dream is worth their hard work.
Though it’s difficult I’d say it’s worth the effort because you get to combine ideas with people passionate about your business and create synergetic products. Investors and ventures also tend to invest in businesses owned by 2 or more people instead of a sole proprietor.
15. Network With People
Building relationships with people is crucial to the success of your business. Some of these people could be your co-workers, investors, or your prospects. For this reason, you should do your best to build relationships with people, you can easily do this by participating actively in forums and groups in your niche.
16. Attract Investors
You probably remember me saying that it would be difficult to attract investors when you are starting. But if you’ve followed the steps listed up till now it would be relatively easy for you to attract investors to invest in your business because your business has started to make some progress, you’ve gotten co-workers your business is now promising and investors are now encouraged to invest in your business.
17. Run A Trial
This is another method of doing research. When you want to produce a product but don’t know if the customers will like it or not you can offer a free trial for a limited period and then obtain feedback from your customers.
18. Explore Crowdfunding Platforms
Crowdfunding is a means of providing funds for your business by the donations and/or investments of people present in the platform. You should research to discover the most reputable and generous crowdfunding platforms for the best results.
It can be quite tough to get donations from these platforms if your proposal isn’t properly drafted. Ideally, your proposal should contain:
- How much it wants to raise
- How much it has raised so far
- The share in the business offered (if relevant)
- What the money will be used for
- How long the pitch is open for
- How many people have already invested
- What you will receive in return for investing (such as shares in the company)
19. Secure A Small Business Loan (Optional)
If your business is growing well and you need some extra funds to get a push to enlarge the business or if you just want to start it up you can check out with the Small Business Administration to see if you are eligible to receive a loan from them
20. Get Funds From Grants And Local Funding
The government at all levels in the US generally supports small businesses by providing zero-interest loans for business start-ups.
It’s not easy to get one but the process is quite long and daunting but it’s up to you to decide if it’s for you.
Conclusion
There you have, these are the 20 slick steps you can use to start your business with no money. I’d like to hear from you, did you find this article helpful, if you did, let me know the first step you are taking in the comments section. Goodbye for now.