How To Start A Business With Almost NO Money 💸

grit hustle passion these are the things that are going to define your success as an e-commerce business owner and they're more important than having deep pockets why because it's not the money in your bank that's going to wake you up out of bed every day it's your hustle that will so if you're looking to start a business but maybe you're short on coin then this video is gonna be for you today we're gonna talk about five tips on starting an online business even if you're short on cash [Music] okay so tip number one look into grants so here's a little secret there is free money floating around out there and the nice thing about grants is that unlike loans grants don't actually have to be paid back so how can one actually get their hands on some free money so you're going to want to start by doing a google search so super easy just type in grants for small businesses and then type in your location how to get started with grants okay so first you're going to want to look for grants that align with your mission so key tip you don't want to be changing up your brand mission just because you're following the money so what you can do is you can start by doing some research on grants that are available within your city region and country then once you have a few shortlisted you're gonna do a very thorough read through in the requirements and then you're gonna find out what you're eligible for also don't be afraid to actually pick up the phone and get to know the people behind the grant kind of as if you were like dating or courting um because you want to remember that the people that are behind the grants they're still people too so sometimes creating relationships can help you stand out from the crowd and it can also help you both decide whether it would be a right fit you might also hear that some foundations don't actually take unsolicited proposals and if that's the case that's fine too but anyways some grants that are available during the time of filming this video include seed funding to solve ocean challenges funding for exporter marketing boots to business and i fund women so these are just you know some examples off the top of my head um i will leave links for you guys in the description box um but if you're needing more outside of those recommendations this is a hot little tip here so some federal governments they actually have online directories and you can basically just scroll through a ton of different options all on one page okay so the next tip is to start crowdfunding so if you're not familiar crowdfunding is a way of raising capital through the support of your friends your family your customers sometimes even complete strangers who are just you know in love with your idea so these supporters are also known as pledgers and pledgers donate money to help your vision come to life or maybe they're really excited about a perk or a gift that you offer in exchange for their donation now any type of business can use crowdfunding so you can be in art design technology music whatever it is but the point is is that with the help of pledgers you could potentially raise thousands of dollars to make an idea come to life or maybe use it to fund your first round of production for example okay so how can you get started with crowdfunding so first you're going to want to check out platforms like kickstarter and indiegogo these are crowdfunding websites that allow you to set up a personalized page for your startup so that you can start soliciting money so take a look at this company here you can see how much they have raised so far right over here and over here on the right you can see that pledgers will receive a gift for donating money this is how you incentivize people to participate and over here we can see that they do a really great job with videos photos and text and this is all explaining you know what their brand is about and the benefits of the product that they are selling if you are interested in getting started with crowdfunding the first thing that you're going to want to think about is what kinds of perks and gifts you'll be giving to your pledgers and then you're going to want to start planning your explainer videos as well you're going to want to think about your text your photos all of these things that will convince potential pledgers to invest in your product or idea consider selling digital products so digital products are one of my favorite ways of starting a business because you could literally have zero dollars and be very successful at this so when we think of digital products we're thinking about ebooks we're thinking about pdf guides photoshop brushes and these are amazing because they only have to be made once and then they can be sold an infinite amount of times so you can see how this could be very lucrative and it can be a great way to make passive income so for example envato elements they are a company that sells digital products they sell music they sell fonts and i actually just signed up for a membership with them recently and i was able to download all the premier templates that i needed it was super helpful and it was super useful so say this is the route that you want to take how do you actually get started with digital products well you're going to want to start by focusing on creating your library of digital products as long as you know what people are actually needing and what's missing from the market you're going to be successful in this and then once you have your library you're going to want to actually focus on marketing that library so if you have little or no funds consider starting a drop shipping business so with drop shipping starting a business is one of the most affordable routes if you're not familiar with what that is it's basically when a seller accepts a customer's order but they don't keep any inventory it's actually the manufacturer or the wholesaler that gets notified when an order is placed on your website and then they're the ones that ship the goods directly to the customers so you as the business owner you're really only responsible for the marketing and the selling of that product and you actually have very little if not no control over the product quality storage inventory management shipping all that kind of stuff so that's a bit of a refresher on what drop shipping is but this could be really nice because if you have limited funds this avenue could be perfect since you won't have the cost of maintaining a warehouse or a storefront and of course you won't be purchasing any inventory so how can you get started well you can start with a free trial on shopify if you're not familiar shopify is a subscription-based software that allows anyone anywhere to sell products so i will leave a link for you guys in the description box um to get started on that but it's really nice because you can basically get your online store set up in a matter of hours and then once you're done that you're going to want to head over to the shopify app store and then you're going to download an app called oberlo oberlo is a platform that makes it really easy to find drop shipping products from suppliers all over the world and it's super easy to add them to your own online store so with oberlo you can access a variety of different products you can find electronics toys cosmetics and then all you have to do is find you know what you want to sell you import it into your store it's literally a single click and then that product will then be available to your customers so if you are thinking about starting a drop shipping business we have a 45 minute workshop and that's going to walk you through how to start and launch your drop shipping business you're going to learn how to source top selling products from thousands of suppliers without paying for products up front without worrying about inventory or shipping a single package yourself so in this course you're going to learn how to get your first sale and beyond so what you can do is you can register using the link in the description box and that's going to gain you access to this free on-demand webinar and that's already helped over a hundred thousand entrepreneurs so make sure you are clicking the link in the description box to get started with that don't be afraid to get resourceful so if you're starting with zero dollars or you're starting with very little money it's important to be resourceful why well i think sometimes we get in our own way because we want to do things the right way or we want to do it the way that we think things are traditionally done but let me put it to you this way the customer doesn't really care how you got to the final product they care about the quality of the product they care about that end quality product they're not going to know whether the models in your photos are your childhood friends or whether you actually paid professional models to to model for you or for example they're not going to care whether you use a commercial oven to launch your bakery shop they care that their brownies are delicious so doing things the conventional way can sometimes be costly so getting resourceful finding workarounds that can really help you and save you a pretty penny as you get your business started so for me for example i run a makeup brand and one of the products i sell are blushes and i really loved these blush colors from one supplier but i didn't like the packaging that they came in so what i did was i ordered the blushes without the packaging and then i sourced the packaging from another company now this added some extra work because i had to actually like manually glue in the blushes into this new packaging was very annoying but my resourcefulness saved me money and it also made me happier with the end product i got exactly what i wanted so basically main takeaway is don't feel bound to how things should be done but start thinking about how things could be done so if you're starting a business and you're going to start marketing start thinking about using organic marketing tactics now i think the thing is is that we hear a lot about ecommerce startups finding you know huge success with facebook ads or huge success with google ads and that's all fine and great but not all of us have five grand to drop every month on ads right and that's why organic marketing tactics are really great for startups and it's not gonna cost you a dime so if you're not familiar organic marketing refers to marketing activities that don't cost you anything so think about like posting to instagram or starting a blog or using reddit for example so how do you get started with organic marketing this is a bit of a tough question because each business is going to have platforms that they should be you know completely focusing on and other platforms that they should probably just completely ignore so if you have a certain audience this is rule of thumb if you have a certain audience that you want to target you're going to want to follow them to the platform that they are already spending their time on so some off the top of my head um if you are in fashion you're probably going to want to spend your time marketing on tick tock instagram pinterest and youtube because those platforms are highly visual if you're in tech think about blogging reddit youtube especially because long form content will give you the opportunity to go through features and full explanations if you're in home goods think about pinterest think about digital publications think about all the places where design lovers spend their time i probably could go on and on with all the different industries but hopefully you get the point basically you just want to think about where your audience are spending their time and what would be the appropriate type of content for you to create and then just go from there now the key with organic marketing is to be consistent now if you're not seeing traction at the beginning that's totally normal just keep pushing and you will find that your hard work will pay off in the long run if you want to start an online business but maybe you're not sure what to sell and you need help finding a product make sure that you're checking out our free 40-minute webinar that's gonna teach you how to find a winning product idea how to validate your idea and how to get started so just click the link in the description box to get started with the free training now okay it's comment time so i'm actually going to take a look at some of the viewer comments and i'm just going to answer a few of you guys on the spot so ashley klein she commented thank you for such insightful tips can't wait to start testing these tips over the next month we just launched our sustainable fashion line at acala clothing.com hopefully i'm pronouncing that right um and she launched her sustainable fashion line and i guess she wants us to take a peek at it so we're gonna do that right now let's head over there okay amazing so for any of you guys that are looking to launch a shopify store make sure that you're heading over to the site because this is how to do it um she has exceptional branding she has professional looking photos she does have a super smooth user experience and a lot of that is attributed to the fact that she is using shopify of course um she has very detailed product information on the product pages this is literally perfect i just want to say good job ashley you are killing it all right let's move on to the next comment okay sonic boom says thanks katie holmes you're welcome sonic boom and lastly david clank says great video i sent this to my wife thank you michelle honestly thank you mr clank for tuning in and thank you so much for sharing it with your friends and family guys if you do have friends that are looking to start a business and um you know that this video will be helpful to them and make sure that you are sending this video along but um yeah pull up david clank share this video with them if you thought that this video was helpful if it's like no other video you've ever seen before make sure that you're hitting the thumbs up button that really helps our channel it helps our community grow and also make sure that you're leaving a comment in the comment section just letting me know what you guys want to see next because i find that um if we're really hitting what you guys want to see we're just helping you that's what this channel is here for so make sure you're doing that and don't forget to hit subscribe as well as the notification bell so that you're not missing out on any future videos thank you guys so much for watching and i will see you in the next one bye you

Channel: Learn With Shopify

Views: 53,276

Keywords: learn with shopify, ecommerce tutorials, shopify store, ecommerce business, online business, start a business with no money, how to make money online, easiest business to start with no money, business to start with no money, how to start a business without money, make money online 2021, easy business to start with no money, how to start a business online, start a business without money, how to start a business, how to start online business with no money from home

Id: Wq8JEMwoMPk

Length: 14min 34sec (874 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 24 2021