It is common knowledge that running a business can be demanding not to talk of starting with no funds. The need for resources to attain business growth and scale demand and supply can not be ignored. Neither can we waive aside the difficulty of accessing funds to run a new business venture. Having stated this, is there a way to maneuver around it?
In this article, we will share some principles to help prime your mindset as a new or intending entrepreneur. Then we will proceed to highlight a few viable strategies you can explore to start your business from scratch with no funds, financial credit, or financial investments?
Pillars of the entrepreneurial mindset
What do we mean by the entrepreneurial mindset? This is a way of thinking that enables you to overcome challenges, be decisive, and accept responsibility for your outcomes. It is a constant need to improve your skills, learn from your mistakes, and take continuous action on your ideas.
Forbes describes the entrepreneurial mindset as a certain way of thinking — it is about how you approach challenges and mistakes. It is about an inherent need to improve your skillset and to try and try again.
This entrepreneurial mindset is held in place by a set of clearly defined characteristics or pillars. These are three we consider most important to help you grow your business without funds.
1. Positivity
Striving to achieve success in business starts with the firm belief that success is possible. Successful business owners often just start. They don’t think about all the challenges that will get in their way. As an entrepreneur, you should tend towards resilient impulsive actions. Your success depends on your ability to execute first and then figure things out as you make progress. Then when you have identified a working formula, repeat it as often as possible.
No venture will get off the ground if you focus on the lists of all the things you don’t have. Instead, make a list of all the things you have and figure out how to use those resources to build your business.
2. Resourcefulness
The ability to look for opportunities and take actions lots of actions is a key pillar of the entrepreneurial mindset. Starting a company is difficult. More so, when resources available in your immediate environment are limited. As a resourceful entrepreneur, you require the ability to see a way where others might see a wall. You are constantly asking the question, “how can things be done better?”
This ability to leverage resources must also transcend your capacity. You need to explore mutually beneficial relationships with others with complementary abilities to drive value.
3. Patience
Things will not always go as planned, it won’t always be fun, and you might not succeed immediately. In harnessing your entrepreneurial mindset through your business execution, you will learn a lot about management, finance, people, and yourself along the way. The key to understanding this is patience.
Patience allows you to be objective in your choices and gives you the ability to focus on the bigger picture. Despite any temporary setbacks, you can plan your resources for achieving your long-term business goals.
What options do you have to start?
1. Get a job:
This might seem counterintuitive to the whole article, but this is borne out of the misconception that entrepreneurship is the polar opposite of getting a job. On the contrary, the entrepreneurial mindset can be leveraged to improve your output as a part of a larger organisation. In the same vein, taking up a role in an organisation can significantly boost your chances of success in starting up your own business.
But how can get a job help you set up your business without access to funds? Here are a few ways;
Taking up a job with a larger organization is a great way to build your business’s initial working capital. A well-planned strategy can also give you the opportunity to learn the skills required and grow your network of potential partners and customers, which you can then leverage when you are ready to kick off with your new business venture.
It also helps you build credibility for your skill sets. This can be very valuable in attracting your first customers based on the trust built while rendering your service as an employee.
2. Start a service business:
In deciding your choice of business when faced with very limited financial capacity, your consideration should be for one which can leverage resources other than money. Resources like time, skill, relationships, etc., are also valuable means of exchange that can be traded with. Service businesses fall into this category because they offer you an opportunity to leverage your skill-set to generate revenue.
There are really no limitations on what kinds of service businesses you can venture into. Almost any activity which has demand can be rendered as a service. While the potential revenue for service businesses vary across parameters like;
– Different types of services.
– Your level of proficiency.
– Quantity of demand available.
– Availability of services.
3. Build a niche Community:
These days influence is a highly valuable commodity. The ability to rally a group of people around an ideology is the determining factor for any brand’s growth and success and can be traded for money. Building a community online requires you to establish an area of focus, choose a point of convergence, attract people who are equally passionate about it by sharing resources valuable to them, and building relationships in the group by driving active engagement. Social media offers a free platform to both build and manage an audience which can then be monetised in one of two ways:
- Invite brands with products relevant to your community to promote their products. This offers diverse value to your members and helps to spice up the group.
- Leverage your influence to set up and promote your own business to your community members. This allows you to build on the trust equity that has been developed over time.
4. Enter a distribution partnership:
Growth is an essential part of any business and many brands, even the big ones, are looking to extend their services to cover more grounds. This might be an extension into a new market, customer demography, area outside their coverage or a new community. This gives you a great opportunity to find a product or service you are interested in and affiliate yourself with them as a distribution partner.
You can either work as a full-time affiliate distributor for one product or work with a range of products that may be valuable for the customer demography you are focusing on. Your income is only limited by your ability to convince people to buy the product you are distributing. And you can leverage the existing reputation of the business to drive sales.
Through any channel readily available to you. These are some potent strategies to leverage in starting your own new business, which is independent of your financial capacity. They can be executed even without funds to get starting capital which can then be deployed to grow the business.