How to Start a Business with No Money

Starting a business without money may seem impossible. However, if you follow these steps, it may lead you to a very successful endeavor. Here is how to start a business with no money.

1. Discover a need or find your passion
   I love to grow things. At 16, I turned that passion into a landscaping business (that I sold). Now my current business, Financially Simple, is a need business. I see a need to educate business owners on finding simplicity in their finances. So what’s your passion?
2. Be prepared to fail and lose it all
   If you know there’s a possibility you might fail, you’re going to do everything in your power to keep that from happening. And if you do fail, get up and start over again!
3. Find a like business and model yours after it
   If there’s a business out there that’s successful and similar to what you want to do, grab a cup of coffee with the owner and pick their brain.
4. Develop a business plan
   A business plan is the key to identifying ways the strengths and weaknesses in your business. For help developing a comprehensive business plan check out the step by step guide on this blog post.
5. Build a board of advisors
   This can be made up of buddies, friends, business owners you look up to that you can glean information from. So you want people you can bounce ideas off of and will challenge your thoughts.
6. Crowd test, crowdfund or beta test a project
   So if you want to sell coffee cups, then you’re going to take it to your target audience and ask what they think of it, find out what may need improvement… those types of things.
7. Burn the bridge
   Don’t look back! Put yourself in the position where you can’t retreat. I mean it when I say that! If you can’t go backward you will eventually succeed.
8. Be nimble and adjust
   There are things I’m doing today that I didn’t think about 6 or 7 months ago. You have to adjust. I promise in a year, two, three or even five, something is going to change and you’re going to need to adjust your business accordingly.

Hey, if you found this article helpful, you need to check out our complete Starting a Business series where we go through what you will need to know to get your business off the ground.