#Entrepreneurship #StartUpFunding #RaisingCapital
Alright, let’s get real here. So, you’ve seen all those success stories of people turning their ideas into millions, but the burning question remains: did they really start from nothing? 🤔
Here’s the deal – many of those success stories don’t really dive into how much capital these entrepreneurs started with. Did they have savings, raise money, take out a loan, or did they actually start at $0? Well, let’s dig deeper into this.
I’m 29 and in the same boat as you – I want to start my own business, but my bank account is looking pretty sad right now. So, what’s the solution for us broke aspiring entrepreneurs? 🚀
Here are a few possible ways to raise capital when you’re starting from zero:
– Crowdfunding – platforms like Kickstarter or Indiegogo can help you raise funds from the public
– Bootstrapping – funding the business yourself through side gigs or part-time work
– Angel investors – seek out individuals who are willing to invest in your idea
Let’s share our experiences and brainstorm some solutions together! Where there’s a will, there’s a way. 💡 #StartFromZero #EntrepreneurialJourney #RaisingCapital
NOBODY is completely self made, like Arnold said once. From the foundational support of family and friends to the opportunities afforded by society, education, and mentorship, every individual’s path is invariably influenced by a multitude of factors beyond their control. The education one receives, the social networks one builds, and even the economic and political climate play pivotal roles in enabling success. Furthermore, collaboration and teamwork often produce significant accomplishments, even the most driven individuals rely on the contributions and expertise of others.
Start something online. I see a lot of posts about people finding success with AI and/or SaaS.
Most businesses fall into two categories. Goods or services. You can’t really start a goods business without $. (Not impossible but hard) You can however start a service business with a little bit of money. If you can’t find someone to loan you money, try a credit card. If you can’t get a credit card, work a lot of hours and save up until you can get started.
What do you want to do?
Do you really want an answer to “Is anyone self-made”?
Or do you want ways to kick off with $0?
I can help you with one but can’t answer the other – nor do I care.
I sold a large collection of vintage firearms and took two loans to start one of my businesses. You just have to do the thing. Whatever it is, just don’t give up.
I borrowed $150 from my then girlfriend, now wife. I also bummed a ride from her on my lunch break to take me to Dallas to file a general partnership ($50). Then, I filed my EIN online at the Dallas office. Then, on the way back to work, we stopped and pit the remaining $100 in to open a Chase business checking account.
To pay sample shipping via DHL from China a week later, I donated plasma. After my first month of plasma donations, I had just under $1200.00. I used some of that to buy the domain name and email hosting.
At that point to cover tooling and die costs, manufacturing for 1st order, import bond, shipping, duties, and 25% tariffs, I made 1200 cold calls and emailed flyer price sheets I made on Canva.
I used my competitors’ truck parts as my samples.
I landed a Freightliner dealership group that I sold 6 months’ worth of my parts at a 60% discount. I collected 30% upfront and the balance when ready to ship from China about 100-110 days later.
The 30% covered everything for the 90,000 pieces order (30k each of three configurations), tooling, shipping, bond, tariffs….when I collected the 70% at bill of lading I paid for an extra 10,000 pieces of each part (30k total) that I had split off from the customers order when it hit alliance airport intermodal and transfered to truck for delivery.
I took my lunch break on delivery day and went to watch their parts get unloaded and the crates opened. To say I was scared to death would be an understatement, but standing there with their GM I acted like this was how we did business. Everything was perfect!
My parts arrived at my trailer park, and we’re unloaded by lift gate. I stored then under my camper for that first year in business, but eventually rented a 5’x10′ self-storage building. My first office and warehouse!
From then on, I cold called every independent diesel repair shop, major fleet, national accounts like STM, Loves-Speedco, Walmart, and all the major global truck and bus manufacturers. It took a lot of years to flip inventory, order more. Balancing sales, cash flow, and inventory were my greatest challenge through the years. In year 6-7 we finally are ahead of it and utilize 3pl, our personal 11k sq ft warehouse on my property, and factory to factory for major OEM accounts. We now have 6 factories in 6 countries and have done 8 figures top and bottom line years 6, 7, and now 8.
We have been in buy out talks since Q3 2023, but I think we are not going to agree to them raising our prices on our customers, so we will continue to run things.
Sell then buy. It can be done.
effect millions to make millions
I started with $0, I had an amazing supportive parent who worked night and day to keep us warm and put food on the table. Went to school through a full-ride scholarship for my exam marks, programmed in my free time, accounting as a day job, thankfully 2 industries that don’t require much cash, just a brain.
I’ve always been incredibly risk-averse, I run my own virtual accounting firm, but I still have a day job. At this point it probably makes more sense to focus all my energy on the firm, but I’d definitely see my income drop pretty significantly, at least in the short term.
>Where does someone with nothing start?
For the vast majority of people starting a business it is a sales role. Likewise, being the CEO of a company is a sales role. It’s all sales skills. If you want an “internship” that pays six digits towards helping you with all of this stuff, including how to get initial funding, go work in sales. Seriously, go apply for sales roles. Do it for at least 6 months. Continue to live frugally. You’ll save up capital while simultaneously learning how to successfully run a business.
Yes.
Grew up not even having dinner every night
Expelled from high school.
Jail.
Had a child at 16.
My mother still works retail, and when my father died he left behind a whopping $3 to the family.
No handouts, no inheritance, no lawsuit or insurance check, no rich uncle giving me a loan.
100% Sweat Equity, from zero to I could sell everything today and never work again in my life if I wanted, and I’m only 34
The only people that are self made are orphans who didn’t get a lot of help. In reality, all self made means is nobody gave you what you made, so it doesn’t really matter where you start, it’s not really a flex, it just means you built something.
Why you are not trying to collect funds from crowdfunding I don’t know really about it but u can checkout on the internet wish you good luck 🫶🏻
I graduated late, 26yo, bc I’m not all that smart or school motivated and attended part time while I worked to pay tuition. My NW was about neg $25K. My wife and I got teacher pay equivalent jobs and had NW $150K in 5 years. We lived on one $30K salary and saved the other plus invested wisely and did odd jobs to pick up more cash. Started a biz at 35, FatFIREd at 47 making $1M or more annually for the next 15 years. Excluding real estate, we’ve never spent annually more than maybe $500K and usually half that.
Work a job (part time, contract gig, anything that you don’t hate but can feed your business money) to pay towards business, credit card, credit line, loans, grants, crowdfunding, angel funding, and I’m sure there are other ways to get money rolling in, but here are but a few ways.
Start with contacting the Small Business Burea of your state to get help setting up a business. They offer grants as long as the state budget allows for it, and will walk you through the process of getting the proper license / structure for your business
I’m not a full timer and can’t boast any significant profits I usually have a couple small things going at a time and make around 50k a year as a side thing to my w2. I have the cash to put in and putting the cash in usually means an easier to operate venture, less time commitment, etc. but as a general rule I don’t like to put cash in so I give myself a limited budget of $1,000 for any idea I have. I usually do drop shipping, it’s important to have good products and not junk so I get some samples and buy the website and do my first round of ads. Then it is sort of an organic growth machine that I churn everything in. I get bored after about six months when they usually turn pretty profitable and then they slowly die with six more months of profit before traffic just stalls out. I am sure any one of these could be a bigger deal if you put the time in.
My point is it doesn’t take much to get going on a small thing. Make that thing profitable and take those profits and put them back into the next thing and then the next thing until you find one that sticks.
If you started with a public education and enough food in your belly, you started with more than a lot of people. It’s such a blessing to even be born healthy, but so many millionaires take for granted these basic things in life, even if they started with $0 at 18, they had advantages if they had the previous mentioned things growing up.
Not all businesses require a lot of capital. Many businesses now can be started with zero capital assuming you posses the right skills.
Given that you are out of work and broke, you have three choices:
1 – Start a service such as lawn care or picking up dog poop
2 – Become a consultant – assuming you have skills that people hire consultants for
3 – Get a job
Anything else takes time before you get paid.
Once you have basic income taken care of then you can decide if you want to try out one of your other business ideas.
I highly recommend listening to Noah Kagan’s interview on Mixergy about his latest book “Million Dollar Weekend.” They cover the entire book in an hour -including giving you the steps. The book is still valuable if you can get it because it explains things in more detail. Including simple actionable steps to take.