Build Your Business with No Budget
Yes, I know it sounds crazy, but you can do it.
Now, I just want to preface that I am talking about starting your business, MVP with no money. (Obviously, it costs money to register become a legal entity, all of that. )
But even before you get to that registration stage, you need to test your minimum viable prototype, MVP, to really see if you even have a business, or if your business has legs.
So, we’re going to be talking about building this initial prototype with no budget.
Before we talk about the tools, let’s get the mindset right.
I feel like oftentimes, I’ve been guilty of this myself, we use money as kind of a guise for maybe another reason, we’re not ready to start a business…Maybe it’s fear, maybe it’s anxiety, a lack of confidence, or even, lack of education, if we are building a tech business with no technical background. However, I am telling you, no matter what background qualifications, experience you do or do not have, you can go out and test your business idea with no budget.
I want you to think about building this minimum viable prototype as kind of an experiment.
It might feel very paradoxical. But by actually going out, building something scrappy and testing it, you will have, I would say 100x more confidence when you are refining iterating and going to launch when you do have a big budget. Because you are already going to know what the market wants, what your customers need, and what features and benefits they do and do not appreciate.
So when you get that kind of mindset, like we are putting on our white coats, testing our business hypothesis before we invest a cent into it, it becomes a really exciting adventure.
And you can build a business with no money by using some of the incredible tools and resources we have out there today.
Let’s talk about how to get started.
Now any idea arguably can be tested with a scrappy prototype, so I created a build your business with zero money ebook. It’s full of resources of my favorite no code tools and some of my favorite operations, design sales and marketing resources that cost you nothing.
So when you are starting your business with no money, I want you to embrace the free trials. So some of the tools I might mention today have free trial versions. Try them. (Who doesn’t love a good try before you buy!)
Some of the best tools at no cost.
Before you build your MVP, you might want to ideate and get all of your ideas on paper, or in this case, on computer and one of my favorite tools for doing this is Trello.
Trello is the way you can visualize all the tasks you need to do on one dashboard. I love using these boards for brainstorming, for putting all of my random ideas I think about when I’m travelling to and from on the Tube. You know, those are when the great ideas happen. And it allows you to really see all the work you need to do.
I would say about 80% of businesses I work with build their first MVP as a landing page. You do not need a fancy website while you’re testing out your business idea. Some of my favorite landing page websites include yep.so, which they pride themselves in basically allowing you to build a landing page in 15 minutes or less. But what I love about yep.so is that it’s very simple. There’s no frills, you do not get distracted by.
Another amazing landing page site is card. I used Caard as our first landing page when we were building Musemio back in 2018. And I am telling you the great thing about Caard is it is also very simple. It is a website designed only to be scrolled on one page, all of the templates allow you to showcase your products or your portfolio in a really easy and simple way. There’s a little more designed flair, I would say then yep.so but not enough to be completely overwhelmed like Squarespace.
What about design for non designers? Yes, you do not need to shell out a ton of cash in your early days for some great design work. What I would consider probably my favorite tool resource of all time is Canva. Canva allows you to create logos, documents, leaflets, social media posts, I mean almost just about everything, even mock ups.
Another thing when it comes to design is people often think of brand photography. Do I need to shell out a ton of money to get some photos?
Absolutely not.
There are some really great free open source websites for photography. One of my favourite is Unsplash. Another one is Pexels. And they have very diverse, beautiful images that you can use and not worry about copyright, or shelling out a ton of money in the early stages for a photographer.
When it comes to marketing, you can start a blog today in about 10 minutes, if you sign up with Medium. Medium is an incredible peer blogging platform that allows you to really share your voice, share your insights, and share that maybe even the behind the scenes building of your product with no costs.
The other marketing tool I love is newsletter/audience generation platforms like MailChimp. Once again, MailChimp is a powerhouse — you can build a landing page on MailChimp, but I wouldn’t recommend it for your first one just because there’s probably too many options.
But, you can build your newsletter, you can send out newsletters, you can build your audience. MailChimp is awesome. It has you know the data protection for those emails and your audience, and also the flexibility for you to really reach your audience in fun and unique ways.
You have to start somewhere — and don’t be embarrassed to start small.
By starting your first iteration with no budget, you are able to test every step of the way before you make any capital investment.
That’s exactly what I speak about: I tell founders in my community is test before you invest.
You’ll get feedback you’ll learn as you go, and you’ll be able to embrace iterations so that you can build the best business, product or service you can.
If you want to learn how to build your business for zero money, download my free ebook here. (And if you want to hear all of my favorite tools and resources like these, but with some more personality and detail, listen to the Everyday Entrepreneurship Podcast)
