One of the most challenging – and rewarding – things you can do is start your own business and watch it grow, far away from the world of cranky bosses, layoffs and downsizing.
But with that glittering realm of personal freedom and potential success comes a huge dark side of pitfalls, traps and the biggest question of all – how can I afford it?
According to the list below, via Stumble Upon, it’s not as hard as you might think. So, for those who truly believe that spoils do go to the bold, here are some clever ways to start a business without money:
- Put off normal “business starting” things like incorporating, hiring and renting space until AFTER your business has started earning money. This is called “bootstrapping”
- Do everything you can by yourself and use up your personal time, too – instead of hiring an “expert.” This is also called “work harder.”
- Work from home to save the expense of renting an office.
- Get a free lawyer and legal advice from the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) mentors at Score.org and find a similar legal document online and modify it to your needs
- Get a free business website at www.wordpress.com or tumblr.com. When you’re ready to have your own domain, register it at domain.com and add this as a custom domain to your WordPress or Tumblr site. Get a professional looking website design for free with a wordpress theme that you can install with a few clicks (no programming knowledge needed).
- Getting a Logo – use LogoYes to create your own logo (or at least get ideas that you can recreate on your own for free
- Pick a good domain name with your keywords in the domain (use hyphens if necessary). This will help you rank in Google for that keyword and get visitors to your website.
- Word of mouth is always the best advertising … Send an email to everyone in your contact list with a short friendly note letting them know you are starting a business.
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