Many believe you need significant capital, but I’m here to explain how to build a business from zero, which is the only way to guarantee success. I’ve built multiple 6-figure businesses starting with $0, and I believe the common advice to get loans or capital is a trap that causes failure. Instead, I’ll share the ‘people-first’ method that actually works.
Prefer to watch? I’ve put my video below or if you’re a reader simply continue reading the post.
The 3 Things You Actually Need to Start a Business
This is a hill I will die on. You don’t need a bunch of money, a capital investment, grants, or business loans to start a business. You only need three things.
- Something of Value: You need a product or service of value that you can provide to people who need it.
- Communication: You need to effectively communicate that value to the group of people who are likely to need what you’re offering.
- A Way to Exchange: You need a simple way for people to exchange with you for that value, a way for them to buy it from you.
How to Build a Business From Zero With the People-First Method
Here’s what it looks like to start a business from scratch with ZERO capital investment and ZERO business loans. First, you’re going to come up with an idea of some service or value that you can provide to other people.
Then, you’re going to talk about it a lot on social media and everywhere else. As you talk about it, you will find people that might want or need your service. Your job is to help the people that genuinely need what you’re offering in buying it from you. Then, you take the money they’re investing in your service and use that money to pay for the expenses of delivering it to them.
Up until that point, you have ZERO overhead. Once you have a client, you use the money they are paying you to cover your operational costs. You take the difference and you reinvest it into getting your next client or sustaining yourself while you continue to get your next client.
Avoiding the Three Major Pitfalls of a Traditional Start-Up
Once you have about five to ten of these clients, you then begin to build systems around those people. This approach avoids three major pitfalls. Most businesses, when they get started, think they need capital. So, they take out a loan and use that money to build an entire system around their idea. The problem is, your idea isn’t necessarily aligned with your clients, so you’ll build something that doesn’t resonate with the people you actually want to serve.
Instead, you create something of value, communicate it to the people who might need it, and sign them on as clients. THEN you invest the money you’re making from those clients to build the systems around what those clients actually ended up needing. Now you’re building around people.
I call this people-first business. You’re building around the people that actually want to work with you, making the entire business a resonant structure that is aligned with the people that you’re here to serve, rather than building your business as a structure around your idea when you don’t even know how to communicate it to the people that need you yet.
When you take the traditional approach and build around your idea, your ideal clients can’t see you, they can’t hear you, and they can’t connect with you. This means you don’t master the essential skills of communicating your value. Consequently, your business fails shortly after it starts because you built it around yourself and your idea, instead of building around real people who have real problems and need real value. Build your business around people. It costs less to get started and it will pay for itself along the way.
Your Next Steps to Building a Successful Business
This has been a short little masterclass in how to get your business started with very little investment. This is exactly how I started multiple businesses and scaled them to six figures. If you want to dive in and work with me to build your business around real people in a way that changes your life and the lives of your clients, I’d love to support you in the Embodied Entrepreneurs Source Code Activation program. We focus on not only building the business, but also getting your mindset and your energetics right, so that you have the capacity to show up consistently with passion, conviction, and purpose towards the business that you’re creating. I’ll see you on the flip side.
