How To Start A Business On A Budget
When I first started a “real” business I was already in a position of positive cash flow, but it wasn’t because I had inherited money or because my parents had funded my business project, it was because of two reasons…
- I had successfully generated a few hundred dollars a month from hobby projects – these were not things I considered real businesses, just websites I loved to work on that made a trickle of money.
- I had a casual job.
I was 19 when I first became interested in computers (before that it was all about console gaming) and by my early twenties I was capable of putting together a website. My sites were not well designed, but functional, just text wrapped inside a few tables and basic graphics. My beginner training was with the free hosting service Geocities, so just getting text and pictures to appear were you want them to on a page was a challenge.
What I did have during this period was ample time, and that was definitely my biggest advantage. I lived at home, had minimal expenses and was attending university. As many college students understand, your university days can be very flexible depending on how good your work ethic is, and my work ethic was not directed at my textbooks or assignments, it was focused on the Internet.
After a few years playing around online, I settled on a few projects long enough that I made money. As people who have read my business timeline know, my first “cash cow” website was MTGParadise.com. I used the income from this site, plus money from my casual job at a computer helpdesk at my university, to fund my next business, BetterEdit.
During this period I started several other businesses, including an English school called Aussie Tutor, and plenty of different website projects, all of which failed in a traditional sense – they cost more money than they made. I never borrowed money to fund any projects, I used my energy and creativity, income from my job and the steadily increasing cash flow from my website and went from project to project.
You Must Have Something You Can Leverage
If you are considering starting a business you have two resources you can leverage -
