Goal
Start your own business with what you have
You start a business with a skill and a customer, not with capital: find the overlap of what you can do, what you enjoy and what people will pay for, talk to ten potential customers before building anything, sell the smallest version at a price set on the value of the outcome, take profit first from the first deposit, and give the business one hour a week on it rather than in it, so that it becomes something that runs without you. Six books supply the steps; a one-page first-year plan holds them.
What is really going on
You have a skill and an idea and have not started, because the books you read said a business needs capital, a co-founder and a plan.
You started, and it became a job with worse hours: every order passes through your hands and you cannot take a week off.
Money comes in and you cannot say whether the business makes a profit.
Five ideas from five books
- 1
Start with what you have, this week
Fried and Hansson: you need less than you think. Solve a problem you have yourself, fit the first version inside your constraints, and offer it to one person by Friday. Planning resumes once there is something to plan around.
- 2
Talk to customers before you build
Ries: everything in your plan is a guess until a customer acts. Ask ten people about the last time they had the problem and what they did, then make the smallest thing they can pay for. Build after the first payment.
- 3
Work on the business, not in it
Gerber: knowing the craft is not knowing the business. Give the entrepreneur's question one protected hour a week, what would this look like without me, and move one thing from your head into a written system each time.
- 4
Take profit first
Michalowicz: sales minus profit equals expenses. Split every deposit into profit, your pay, tax and operating, and let the business learn to run on what remains. Profit becomes a decision, not a leftover.
- 5
Grow only when it makes the business better
Jarvis: growth is a question, not an assumption. Before any hire or location, write what it would cost you that you cannot see yet, improve before you expand, and know your enough.
Try this today — free
Write the smallest sellable version of your idea in one sentence, list ten people who might have the problem it solves, and talk to three of them this week about the last time they had it.
Questions people ask
- How do I start a business with no money?
- With a skill and a customer. Find the overlap of what you can do, enjoy and people will pay for, sell the smallest version to people you have talked to, and build after the first payment.
- What is the best book for starting a small business?
- Rework to start, The $100 Startup for finding the customer, The E-Myth Revisited for not becoming a prisoner of your own business, and Profit First for the money.
- How do I stop my business depending on me?
- One hour a week on the business, not in it: write one recurring process down each time so that someone else could follow it, and test it by having them do so.
- Should I raise money or take a partner?
- Not to start. Outside money puts you on someone else's clock and a partner is a relationship, not a requirement. This road is for a small, profitable business that is yours.