 How to start a business with almost no money Kate Jenkins started a chocolate brownie business in 2007 Wales and has grown it for free using a social media app called Twitter. When her friends first mentioned the app to her, Jenkins immediately downloaded it and signed up. She began running competitions to win brownies on Twitter. After more than 70,000 tweets using this strategy, she successfully built a supportive community of about 5,000 followers around her business. Gower Cottage Brownies This led to an increase in turnover, about £120,000, a third of which Jenkins estimates has been directly due to Twitter. According to her, it's not just that people are buying my brownies, they are also supporting me and doing PR for me because they are talking about my brownies. Twitter is like the biggest word of mouth. You see, this is not about using Twitter or any other social media platform but about building your business successfully even when you have little or no funds. In this video, I'll share with you how to start a business with almost no money. This, I believe, will help you become a successful person. If you're new here, consider subscribing so that you won't miss other interesting videos like this. 1. Start with something you already know. Build your business on your passion, skills, knowledge and experience. Because starting a business in a different niche will take you out of your expertise and it will be difficult to convince yourself, especially at the beginning, not to talk of others, that you know what you're doing. Moreover, starting a business in your field will give you extra confidence to deliver well. For instance, if you're good at cooking food, you can start a catering business for events. And if you're good at putting clothes or looks together, you can start a styling business as well. Contrary to what a lot of people think, blogging isn't the only way to start a business without spending so much money. There are a couple of other ways, which is why it is best to pick a business in your line of interest. It will be easy to build because it will be more of a lifestyle journey than a difficult business process. Although you can learn new skills, it will take time to take courses, get licenses, pay consultants and so on. So, if you intend to start a business with almost no cost, it is advisable to think of something that you are already an expert at, something that you are passionate about and skillful at. 2. Hold on to your day job. Starting a business is risky. Even more, starting a business with no money is riskier. So, in order not to jeopardize your financial well-being and that of your family, you need to hold on to your day job. Although you might have to work harder than usual, it will help retain the constant flow of income while you build your business. More so, if you have a steady income when you start your business, you'll be more likely to succeed. Here's the thing. When you have a steady source of income, you'll be open to take risks and doing this will help you skill your business faster and also give you the security to try new things, including taking bigger risks. 3. Assess your capital needs. If you want to successfully start your business without spending so much money, you have to figure out the important elements of your business and find out the lowest amount of those necessary expenses you have to in care to make it work. Focus on what's essential. For instance, do you need an office space to function? Do you need to hire so many workers? Do you also need the rest of those fancy stuff to prove to everyone that you are running when you can save the money and invest it in the essential elements needed to run your business? Create a list of things that you must have to run your business. In the list, determine the things that you can do without money and the things you need to do with money. For instance, you can create a logo by yourself using several mobile apps. You can also create a website on your own using free web tools like Squarespace, WordPress, and Wix and the likes. You can create a couple of graphic designs for social media posts, flyers, banners, brochures, and the likes. Instead of outsourcing them, watch YouTube videos of different DIY tutorials and minimize costs by doing certain things yourself. 4. Identify your customers and find ways to service them Another great way to start a business without spending money is to start a service-based business. The good thing about this type of business is that you don't need cash to start. All you need to do is to market it properly. To do this, you need to identify your potential customers so you can begin to service them and make money. Even if your aim or goal is to build a product and sell, you can start by providing services to people to make some money. Enough to start your product-based business. For instance, Microsoft started by doing sporadic software development gigs. You can consider things like affiliate marketing, business consulting, bookkeeping, alteration and tailoring, computer lessons, car detailing, etc. Note that your service-based business can be something related to your intended product business or not. Just make sure that whatever you choose, you're helping people solve a problem. That way, you make enough money to launch your product business eventually. 5. Build a trial version or prototype Once you know how you can go about your business, how it will be funded, where and how to get your first set of customers and the likes, the next thing you should do is to build a trial version. The truth is that you need a lot of money to make your business grow, even if you don't get it all at once. However, before anyone will be willing to invest in any business, especially a product-based business, they'd want to see an example of the product. This is where your prototype comes in. Also, your trial version will help you test and troubleshoot potential problems before launching into the market. It will help you measure feedback from your customers and learn valuable lessons for future use. For example, when YouTube started in 2005, it launched its MVP as an online dating site, where users could upload videos introducing themselves and talking about things they were interested in. Unfortunately, or perhaps in hindsight, fortunately, that idea didn't take off, so the founders pivoted YouTube to become a more general video-sharing site. That change in business model was a huge success. YouTube was eventually sold to Google in 2006 for $1.65 billion. Summary You can start a business with almost no money, only if you know what should be done and what shouldn't. To do that, however, you need to start with something you already know, instead of going to learn something new. Hold on to your day job. Determine the essential cost necessary to run the business so that you can do a proper cost analysis. Identify your potential customers and start with a service-based business. Build a trial version. Thank you so much for watching our videos. If you like this channel, we're happy to announce to you that our team has launched three other interesting channels. One of our new channels is called Hunt TV, where we publish inspirational videos to inspire and encourage you as you go through the harsh journey of life. Our second channel is called Fane TV, where we share with you the interest in and inspiring stories and biographies of the successful people have achieved greatness with their lives. Our third channel is called Money TV, which is a channel designed to use more dramatic video clips to teach you about money. Look at the description box to join our three new channels. We love you.