Author: leonjvr

When entrepreneurs wanting to start a business, the number one big question they have is, where will they get the money to do so. It is often the number one reason why they are not starting a business. However, there are other ways to get your business startup going!

Within this episode I share the first startup sin that you should avoid when starting out without money. If you commit this sin, you reduce your chances of success, and increase your frustrations to start a business.

I only realized this sin when I wrote my conclusions chapter in 2017 in my PhD Thesis, where I evaluated a coaching programme that have helped 37 entrepreneurs to start a businesses within 3 months without money.

So to help me, I also thought back to why some of my past students have struggled to start a business without money.

So immediately I thought of this one student. Lets call him John.

How to spend a lot of time in your business startup to end up no where

This happened back in 2010. I asked my students in class, how did it go with their new businesses – like I always do, week by week.

So this one person had raised his hand, telling me, that he had not been able to start yet, and he is getting stressed. Now this was in the middle of their academic year, and I could clearly see a stressed John in front of me!

I asked him, what is he busy with, what business and why he is struggling.

He basically told me that he did not have enough time to start his business. “Starting without money takes up a lot of time” – he said.

“So tell me, what are you doing with your time, how do you spend your time?” I asked him?

He said: “I am developing the product myself, but I need to learn a few skills first, so I went on a course to learn this skill to develop my product!”

So there I learned about the first startup sin.

Sin #1: Thou shalt avoid developing a DIY mentality.

I then asked him, why are you not getting someone to help you developing your product?

First John told me that he did not know anybody, and secondly he does not trust other people.

This answer helped me to discover the second sin. But more about that in the next episode.

So John tried to do everything himself because he does not trust other people. John also then had to compensate by learning new skills. What he did not account for is that he could not learn a new skill and start a business at the same time on top of his already academic workload.

Trying to do everything yourself in a business startup, will slow you down.

The window of opportunity is open for only a specific amount of time, thus in order not to miss it, you need to ensure that you take on an opportunity that:

• Is your opportunity
• You have the ability to take on the opportunity
• You have access to the resources for the opportunity
• You can take it on fast enough – before it closes.

From a personal point of view, trust:

• Self trust becomes before trusting others
• Lack of self trust often is a result of you breaking trust with yourself. I see that this happens when you set yourself unrealistic goals that you are not ready for, and then you do not achieve these goals. You basically set yourself up for failure when you do this.
• To build self trust, set smaller goals achieve them, and then set bigger goals. Start with something not too far in the future. Like by the end of this week I will achieve xyz. Then grow from there.

In conclusion

Lack of self trust (and even other factors) can cause you to commit the first sin. Where you try to do everything yourself. Then that will consequently result in you getting stuck starting your business. Learn more business tips on my podcast.

This start up company case have me reflect back to 2007. That is when one of my final year students showed me his plans to start his macadamia nut farm and asked if this is a way to start it without money. I was amazed with his creativity on this idea.

Having no access to capital

In the interest of privacy, lets call him, Sandile. It is important to understand the background of Sandile. Sandile comes from a previously disadvantaged group in South Africa. This means access to capital and wealth networks was limited. He is not politically connected and thus such networks was not accessible either.  His father at the time kindly indicated to him that he had to fend for himself.

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From that background a young Sandile entered my office and requested a brief consultation to present his plans for input and advice. I remember the day clearly. This was the first time Sandile came to me for consultation.

He opened his file and showed me images, plans and diagrams. Not a business plan, but a lot of data and research on how his macadamia nut farm will work. I am not a farmer, but from a business perspective, it showed significant insight in how it will work, and that he clearly did his homework in understanding macadamia nut farming.

Access to land

If you want to farm in South Africa, you generally have to buy a piece of land, develop the land for agriculture, get all the equipment and technology, by either renting or buying it. Then you need to get a significant amount of operating capital to see you through the time to your first harvest. Now Sandile presented to me that for seven years he will have no income from this farm but will need to sustain this farm. That is because macadamia nut trees will only bear nuts in seven years time.

So I asked him, where are you going to get land?

Sandile told me that he had made a profit share deal with the tribal leader in northern Limpopo (the former Venda) who owns all the land in that area. In this instance he was able to access land at no cost and at no risk. So his problem was not land, but was to sustain the operations of the farm for seven to ten years and would like to get my advice on it.

Start up company operations funding model

I had looked at all his plans, and realized that it was impossible for him to obtain results in one year for that business. That was therefore a longer term, bigger project. In the shorter term, he had to demonstrate his ability to start and run a business without capital. However, I also wanted to help him with his longer term project.

It was then that I have discovered the solution to use interim projects to fund a larger scale project. With this insight, I had asked Sandile: “What other businesses did you think of starting that you are able to start in the next week and show a profit?”

Sandile responded in stating that he will sell Laptops on campus to students. Now what I am certainly aware of was how can he sell laptops to students who cannot afford laptops in the first place. But perhaps he already had the answer. So I asked him to tell me more about his plans for that business.

Sandile then indicated that he had found a reliable supplier with access to demo laptops. He was able to supply laptops at a fraction of the price to Sandile and then Sandile can resell those laptops on campus.

I was skeptical that students who could barely afford textbooks will be able to afford laptops, even at a reduced price. However I told my student to give this idea a chance and see what happens.

The struggle to sell to a market who cannot afford your product

A few weeks later, Sandile was back in my office for consultation. This time he told me that he managed to get some laptop sales, but sales are going slowly. He indicated that the reason was as I suspected: The market could not afford the laptops.

However, what I loved about this student is that he came to my office already with a solution to his problems. He just wanted to soundboard his solution with me.

So I asked Sandile what his plans was to overcome this problem, to which Sandile responded:

“You see sir, the bookshops on campus has access to the electronic student loan facilities.”

At the time most students studied using the government student loan scheme called NSFAS. Students had a card, almost like a credit card, and could purchase educational related products using their cards and approved merchants, who often operate from campus. So Sandile continued by saying:

“I have negotiated with one of the bookshop owners on campus to sell my laptops there”

I said this was great, and but I asked him whether he will stock his product there, to which his answer was:

“Absolutely not sir! That would be too risky for me, and besides I do not have access to that much operating capital. What I have negotiated was that the bookshop owner would collect orders from students, and then I will supply the laptops based on those orders. Students then have already financially committed and I had nearly zero risk to supply them their laptops”.

I remember that this little business had brought in enough revenue to help Sandile buy and plant the first macadamia nut trees that year.

The framework: Lean to Zero Zagger Framework

This framework that Sandile applied is what I call my Lean to Zero Zagger Framework. What this means is that as you know when everyone zigs, then the appropriate success response could be to zag. When everyone either find excuses how not to start a company, you simply find a different perspective. After reducing the resource requirements, such as negotiating or entering in partnerships – in this case with the Venda tribal leader for the land, then to zero the resource requirements for that venture, you simply start a venture that can be done without capital. You then re-invest the funding of the interim venture into the bigger venture. The steps of this framework is as follows:

• Find out what resources or network you have access to
• Find new ways to reduce resource requirements that you do not have access to
• Develop profit sharing partnership agreements for any remaining, but core and critical resource requirements
• For resources that purely requires capital, where partnerships are not possible or undesirable, then develop a zero capital smaller project (seeding project)
• Start the seeding project without funding, and re-invest the proceeds into bigger project
• Liquidate/exit by selling the seeding project when the primary project is self sustainable and when the seeding project is consuming valuable time and attention that would be more beneficial to develop bigger project.

Pros and Cons of the Lean to Zero Zagger Framework to a start up company

This zero start up company process that are based on the Lean to Zero Zagger Framework have certain drawbacks as well as benefits. Firstly the drawbacks are as follows:

• it takes time, and also carries some risk
• if the barrier to entry is low, then the potential profits might be low
• it can defocus you from your primary focus or passion

The benefits of this approach to start up a company is as follows:

• You can run it at the same time and reinvest the profits into the new venture
• It can generate equity value, this if you sell you get a large payout to reinvest
• You can decide when to exit – when the new venture is sustainable

You can also listen to my podcast

Summary

No matter what the obstacles to start up a company, there would be a way to get it done. However the less access you have to available resources, the more time and creativity you need to invest to make it work. This in itself is not a bad thing, because what this process does is temper the entrepreneur into become a better leader, and help him become self-sustainable and accountable towards his future decisions.

I often hear the frustration from aspiring entrepreneurs that they do not have money to start a business, yet I have discovered in 2007 that it is perfectly possible to start a business without money. In this blog post I will share the story behind the discovery in how to start a business without money or zero investment.

What inspired me to find a way to start a business with zero investment

I share this story also in this podcast episode. In 2007 I was asked by the University to develop the practical entrepreneurship model. Now I don’t know about you, but I have realized that the word “practical” was in that question. This meant that I had to find a way to help 30 students to start a business. At that time we only had 30 students in our final year entrepreneurship class, today there are around 60 each year.

Granted, it is not that difficult to manage such a small group with a practical project, but the question was how do I create this your course in such a way that it is fair to all the students, irrespective of their background. You see in South Africa, students from all over the country and a variety of backgrounds would get access to university if they qualify. However, most of our students do not have rich and wealthy parents and at the time those students would become the first generation middle class, and even first generation entrepreneurs.

The problem there was that they had no networks, no financial backing and no leverages. So the approach proposed by Greg Fisher, which is really a lean startup approach or a bootstrapping approach for the middle aged who has years of experience and resources. In contrast, these students are young, so nobody trusts them, and they have zero leverages, zero networks, and zero financial backing. Some of them can’t even afford a textbook.

This meant that the practical entrepreneurship module had to be pitched for these unique circumstances. I had to go beyond that, but did not realize it immediately.

Starting a business with other peoples money

The first thing I thought, and even advice by some of my collages was to help them get funders such as loans or angel investors. I then thought deeply about this concept, and then realized but these students will have a hard time concluding such contracts as some would be younger than 21 years. The law at the time was that people under the age of 21 were considered children and that they cannot conclude contracts without the consent of their parents. This would create unnecessary friction in the module and place equality at risk.

However I also thought about the risk towards the institution. Although I am not a lawyer I could just imagine if one of these students lost their business and had been left with a loan as a result of this module. Looking at the success rate of business overall, this would mean that 20% of the businesses would fail within 2 years. Then what would happen? Would they then sue the university, or would they have a bad experience at the university as student and give the university a bad reputation? These were chances I was not willing to take!

So I scratched that idea, and felt depressed!

Getting mentorship from successful entrepreneurs

Since the loan, funding or any form of financial link to business had to be removed from this practical module. So the next idea was to explore the prospects of getting some successful entrepreneurs on board that my students could follow for a period of time and perhaps write a report. To be quite honest, I am a practical person, and this just did not cut it for me as an authentic practical experience. Granted, students would gain a network following this approach, but I had other much faster ways for them to develop a network. Well that was the first issue, but I thought if this is the way, then we will design the course this way.

So the next question was, who was going to be willing to have someone tagging along? This would create an administrative nightmare for us as we had to get 30 entrepreneurs, or even 15 entrepreneurs that will be willing to have someone be tagging along. How do I control what they learn, business management or entrepreneurship, or will the entrepreneur get them to do admin duties, which will mean that the students would not really enjoy and learn from the experience. These risks are real and having students who need to start their own businesses go into an established business without experiencing the real hustle, is not practical enough.

So I scratched that idea also! Now what?

Starting a business without money – the zero capital way

I knew that my students had to start a business to get an authentic and practical entrepreneurship experience. Also this will be really good for them. The problem was I was asking the wrong questions. I was asking, Where can we get money for the students to start a business? How can we get them mentors? I changed those questions to: How can they start a business without money? and How can I design and structure the course in such a way that I am in control of their experience?

If we can do this, then I believe we have the answer to my dilemma

Near the beginning of the semester, I did not work it all out yet, but I knew it must be possible. At the time I also signed up for business mentoring, and my mentor told his students that he will show us to take less than R1000 to R10 Million in less than 5 years. Translated to the USD exchange rate, that would mean to take about $100 and make $1Mil in less than 5 years.

I thought to myself, ok, perhaps there might be a way to get this done, but there is still a R1000 that I need to get to my students. I was thinking again, where will I get this from? And if that business fail, how can the student try again to learn from the process? Eventually I also scratched that idea.

Back to the drawing board, I ask again, ok, if you can start a business with little money, what are you buying with that money. My mentor literally bought website hosting, but used leverages which my students did not have.

Ok, so my question turned to: How can my students start a business without leverages and without any money? Also if you need R1000, how can we make this R0?

And I remember clearly the day I got this breakthrough. It was in the beginning of the semester in 2007 and I asked my students to come up with these answers. 30 minds were better than 1. Allthough I learned a lot from their journeys, they did not figure it out until I realized that the key to this question was sequencing and mindset.

The Zero Business Startup Sequence™

I call this the Zero Business Startup Sequence™. Instead of looking at external ways to solve the problem, we look at internal ways to solving this problem. Most other advice are still dependant on external sources to solve the problem of starting a business without money or with zero capital. This Zagger Business Startup Sequence™ is more a concept than a process or steps. What this means is that the entrepreneur has to develop their own sequencing of starting a business through a series of strategic questions.

I take both my students and the entrepreneurs I coach through this questioning to develop their sequence. The most important question in this process is the question of: How can I start this business without any money or with zero capital? Another question which is important to ask is: What do you want to buy with the money that you say you need? Once we have a list of what you want to buy then we can work with reducing that to zero. That is basically the concept and it takes about 10 mins to help nearly any entrepreneur to start with zero capital or investment.

Example of the Zero Business Startup Sequence™ Approach

An entrepreneur wants to start an online shop to sell a specific physical product. Let’s say Yoga mats. After following the lean startup principles, the entrepreneur calculated that she still needs the following to get her business started:

• Online Shop: $29pm
• Advertising: $200 (assuming $10 per sale)
• Stock: $200 (total for 20 item stock level)
• Domain name: $10
• Logo design: $49

At market related pricing she will make a gross profit of 50%. Meaning that she can turn the stock of $200 into total sales of $400

Immediately my USA readers will tell me that she can rather go into dropshipping and cut the stock costs. Although this might work, we are still in South Africa and dropshipping at the time of writing this article it is still a challenging business model in this country as the infrastructure is not reliable enough yet. Then what about the others?

Think for a moment, we want to start a business right? Do we have to start it with an online shop? Why is that software necessary? And no, WooCommerce is not an option either as our entrepreneur will still need to spend money on hosting, regardless, plus a mountain of time understanding it! Now, I have seen people selling goods online using Facebook and Whatsapp. Allthough this is not scalable, it is possible, and you don’t even need an online shop, no domain name and no logo design. That leaves us with advertising and stock to deal with and take to zero.

At this point in time the sequencing of starting the business is critical.

To get the sequence right, I normally ask the following question to such an entrepreneur once we have eliminated the unnecessary costs for startup.

Who can you target without advertising? Now advertising is typically a growth and leveraging activity, but if you have the money, it is by far the fastest way to test a concept. But remember this entrepreneur do not have money or do not want to risk the money on advertising yet. This question leads us to think differently. Often entrepreneurs are creative and they have an idea, immediately cutting the need to advertise initially. In this case the entrepreneur can approach various facebook groups and even some yoga Whatsapp groups as well. All she need to do is sell 10 to 20 stock items without advertising.

Speaking of stock, the problem is that she has no money for stock. This means she can’t sell? or can she?

Well lets change the perspective again: How can I sell without having the products in stock?

This is often the most easiest and most overlooked answers. You see this is also a mindset issue. This question is often left to last, because it creates the biggest internal challenge to the entrepreneur. All you need for this tactic is to trust yourself first. If you cannot trust yourself, you will be unable to execute this successfully and build a successful business.

In this case the entrepreneur can sell on order. She can take the catalogue from the supplier, use the photographs (with permission) and place images on social media and sell based on that. Of course she needs to know how to sell like this successfully without spamming people. Now this technique is often at first frowned upon. But once I tell my students and the entrepreneurs that I coach that they have already bought products and services like that in the past. If you bought any direct selling product, like Tupparware, you bought that product like this – on order. If you bought a house from a developer based on a plan, you made a very large investment based on a sale that took place based on this principle.

From the above questioning the following first four steps can be sequenced to start your business with zero money.

1. Test the market through pre-orders of this or a similar product (note similar) without investing a cent.
2. Re-invest the proceeds of the first step into your first leveraging tactic, in this case perhaps advertising if you exhausted your reach through the first tactic, otherwise purchase stock.
3. With proceeds and a proven business concept, develop logo and branding and decide on website platform (Woocommerce versus Shopify)
4. Deploy further sales strategies to increase sales consistently

Take note the above sequencing is case specific. In other words it might be different for a different business. You will see that when you change the sequence of these steps then you will need capital to start this business.

In summary, you do not need any money or capital or funding to start a business, and neither do you need any leverages to do so. You need the right sequence that overcomes these barriers in your specific situation.