First, choose carefully a business where you do not have to invest a lot of capital to get it started. Obviously a franchised business will be out of the question. Be realistic about the type of business you choose, and the amount of resources that are available to you. You may be starting out small, but think big! A suggestion is to start out part-time until you have raised enough capital to go full-scale. Another idea is to ask your spouse to support you while you are in the start-up phase of the business.

You may not have a lot of capital, but your time and effort are worth a lot of money. Realistically, the lack of capital will require you to put in more time and effort in order to get the business going and keep it going strong.

Being creative when it comes to getting things done is also required when you do not have a lot of capital. For instance, if you do not have the money to rent an office space or to properly set up your home office, start off on the dining room table.

Additionally, the many materials needed to market your business can get expensive. You will need to get creative, and this effort you put in at the ground level of your business will actually make it and you stronger.

Instead of using banner ads for marketing, use discussion boards or article submissions to spread the word of your business. These are usually free or very low cost. Every cost-cutting measure you take will help you to gain capital; plus you do not have money to waste.

Being a small business owner, you will be responsible for completing all the tasks that need to get done. You are the accountant, the sales person, the marketing guru, and the CEO of your newly started business. With a lack of capital, you need to be prepared to do all these tasks yourself, even when you do not want to do them.

In order to raise more capital quicker, you may want to enlist investors or borrow money. You will need more money in order to grow your business; but be very careful about borrowing. Do not borrow more than you need, but be realistic about how much will be needed-if all of your cash flow is going to pay debts, then it will be hard to grow your business. Be prepared to obtain loans in the future, should the need arise.

Starting a business with low up-front investment cost in terms of dollars is very possible, particularly with the advent of the internet and internet commerce. Learn your business, invest your time and talent in your enterprise and soon you will be astounded by the growth in sales and profits.

Bootstrapping Your Small Business

If you haven’t heard of bootstrapping, it’s fairly straightforward – think of it as the equivalent of making your business successful with very little cost involved. In this respect, it could be seen as “pulling up your socks, strapping on your boots and getting on with it”. It’s a particularly effective way of saving money if your business is either a sole proprietorship or some kind of contractor, as it allows you to both create and manage your income yourself.

With over 18 million small businesses in the US alone, the competition from this figure alone means that any kind of savings you can make by bootstrapping will be worth it. You can put the extra money to use making your business a success, as well as keeping funds stored for downtimes. So what are the best ways for bootstrapping your company? Simple – reduce your outgoings and maximize your incomings.

Your Office
Unless you’re in the PR side of business and you feel you need to make a huge statement with your offices, this is the first place you can make a difference. If your business is primarily online, you can work from home and use a room there as an office. All you need is a computer and a phone anyway, so who’s to know where you’re working from? And if a client wants a meeting, take him or her out to lunch.

Office Equipment
Now that your bootstrapping is saving you office rent, the next step is to continue these savings, and where better to start than your office? You probably don’t need the latest mega-computer for example, so get a decent second-hand laptop or desktop computer, and save a couple of hundred dollars right there. You can also find companies that will sell refurbished phone systems, so even if you have 2-3 employees, it won’t cost you much to have a fully functioning phone and communication system installed.

Employees
If your business needs more than yourself or your partner to make it efficient, then having a payroll is obviously going to affect your finances. However, this is where bootstrapping can make a major difference, if done right. Instead of offering a standard salary, why not offer stock in your company as well as a token wage? You’ll find not everyone will be willing to do this, but there are always some that will. Use Facebook as an example – 3 months after that college experiment started, the company got a $246 million investment from Microsoft, making the early employees very rich indeed.

You can also hire college students. They’re clamoring for job experience towards their chosen area of study, and some may even work unpaid. For more technical jobs like graphic/web design or IT work, you can hire graphic design or IT students to help you out with those specific projects. For more on this, read Hiring Cheap Help – How Student Contractors Can Benefit Your Business .

Pay Your Bills on Time
Although it might sound strange paying money out when you’re looking at saving money, paying your bills on time can be an excellent way of saving in the long run. Because you won’t have to pay late payment penalties or interest fees, you’ll be making savings every month, which you can plow into the company.

There are many ways that you can use bootstrapping techniques – a lot depends on your company and what your selling or providing. But the ones mentioned here will work for any business, and can make the difference between a successful first year, and not being around to see the second.

You might be surprised to learn that there are a fair number of businesses that can be successful without costing you an arm and a leg. There are more opportunities than can possibly be listed; in fact, we are pretty sure that in the time it will take to write this article, one or two new ideas will be developed somewhere for low budget businesses – eventually leading to big bucks.

We hope that an idea for your own business will strike you in the time it takes to read this article!

Concentrate On Your Strengths

Most people don’t realize that the areas they are gifted in may not be that common in other people. Additionally, these gifts can be translated into very low budget businesses, when it comes to starting up. Think about it; do you know anyone who is great with kids and started a successful day care? How about a great organizer and cook who has stepped into the gap created by our North American lifestyle and has a regular clientele of families paying to have their meals created each week?

Of course there is the ultimate example, the motivational speaker – these people have nothing beyond their life experiences, yet they develop their own programs and get paid hundreds of dollars to inspire others!

If you do have a certain skill set, the odds are better than good that you will be able to put them to use to create your own business. All you have to do is market yourself, starting by word of mouth. You will probably find that your business will grow in a short time with minimal investment.

Here are some more ideas:

Mobile Car Wash - in today’s busy culture, it can be easy to neglect things like washing your car. Enter the mobile car washer, who will come to you! You can start out in your neighborhood or apartment complex, and go from there.

Holiday Crafts – there’s always a market for craft items, especially during holidays like Christmas (think of all the Christmas craft bazaars you’ve seen advertised). Craft supplies can be purchased cheap, and you can make a tidy profit selling them at craft fairs or even online.

Petsitting Service - many people with pets prefer to keep them at home in surroundings they’re familiar with while their away, rather than getting them boarded. Round up a few of your pet-loving friends and start your own petsitting service!

Do Your Homework

There are plenty of businesses out there that didn’t take a lot of money to start up, but which are thriving, thanks in large part to the Internet and the way it connects people all over the world. eBay is one great example; in many cases the products people find on the site cost little or nothing, in which case every sale is pure profit.
There are dozens of different ideas for starting your own Internet based business, and none of them cost more than you are probably already paying for your broadband connection!

If you do hit upon a great idea for a budget business, make sure that you don’t get trapped into the low-cost mind set. If you really want to be successful, sooner or later you are going to have to put up some cash. Furthermore, don’t get lured in by the various scams out there to "Make Big Money Fast and Easy". It isn’t easy to run a successful business, and no matter how little money you have to front for these so-called programs, it won’t be worth it in the end. For more information, read our recent article Avoiding Work At Home Scams .

One formula for growing your business is to expect to put 20% or so of the money you make back into the business; as it grows, you will probably look back and shake your head when you realized how little it cost to start up!