Money is never the obstacle in starting a business: while it is very true that with money there is less stress, it is also true that businesses started with money do not have a better chance at becoming brands or successful as a result of the starting capital.
While I, myself, always earned a good amount of money at my corporate job, I have always bootstrapped every single company I started. This was partly for two reasons:
- First: with the lack of resources comes a person’s ability to become resourceful which means you become capable of leveraging everything around you (except money) which can help you very much along the way as it helps you keep expenses low even in times when revenue comes in;
- Second is because people from the bottom all the way to the CEO of a company work harder when they have much more at stake and their backs are against the wall.
When you have a monetary need, and are low on funds, you typically find a way – and the same happens with your strengths when tested against the willingness to survive vs. your strengths at the gym.
Our minds control much of our body and limitations so when the mind believes it to be at stake, it also adapts and becomes resourceful in its approach to situations. This means it makes the rest of our body work harder to accomplish what it believes it can. You could say it’s a mechanism to ignite the adrenaline which results in incredible actions and results. For these two reasons, I never actually invest big money in my own businesses when they are new.
With that said, you do need some sort of baseline capital before getting started as starting with absolutely no money is the level of arrogance that often results in early failure and giving up. If you have yet to learn how to work for your money, or learn to make money even in the smallest sense, then teaching your business to make money for you makes no sense at all.
You can’t expect your money to make money – even in the form of a business – when you don’t understand money. Have never learned how to make money, have never made money, or are constantly finding yourself lost and hopeless when it comes to money.
Therefore, I always recommend for people to work for others, work in different businesses and study finance to understand and learn to make money first, only to learn to leverage it and make it count.
So, for what is left in 2017, don’t focus so much on starting a business with no money, but rather focus on learning how to make money, and eventually how to leverage your money to start a business so that you can eventually no longer worry about money.
