The "I have no money mindset"

Every now and then a friend or client asks me about how to get his business running without any money. Bongeek asked me yesterday on how he even had a hope of doing something without raising ten to fifteen thousand dollars.

Here is my take on the "I have no money" mindset

If you have a job

a. Capital. Put aside ten to fifteen percent a month and within six months you will have enough for a seed fund. How do you put aside ten to fifteen percent a month on a tight budget. Get rid of your discretionary expenses - stop watching movies, eating popcorn, drinking soda, smoking cigarettes, buying gifts for yourself or your loved ones or in desparate situation even food. I have lived for six weeks on raisan bread and butter so that I could pay off a part of my startup credit card debts. When you put your mind to it, you would be surprised how much you can put aside within the short span of a year. In a given month you do spend fifteen to twenty percent of your paycheck on these items and if you want your venture bad enough you shouldn't have too much of a problem making these sacrificies.

b. Time. For most technology ventures the first and most crucial milestone is the proof of concept. If you are a programmer stop sleeping less and working more. If you can put aside an hour every day and a day on weekends, you get two full days a week, 104 days in a year. That is 4 months of programming time.

c. Focus. Make the time count. You must be focused on an approach that will get you to revenues fastest. Don't build anything grand or esoteric, build something that can sell and add to your seed fund or help you meet your cash requirements. You would be surprised at how much money is floating around the business idea you have fallen in love with. Look around hard enough and you will find something that you can sell within a month. If you are in love with blue tooth, sell your blue tooth library of functions for a few dollars. There is your first product. If you don't have a library, write a 30 page ebook on working with blue tooth and sell it on ebay or amazon. If you don't even want to do that, get a blog, post your code and make money through your google adsense account. Teach a class on blue tooth at a local institute or run it online. You need to be a little creative and the money will find you. Rather than focusing on raising money, your focus must be on the path that will start the cash coming in fastest.

d. Misc. Only you know the real potential of the market you see. Every body will discourage you and tell you that you are either wasting your time or taking too much of a gamble. Assume that there is no support group and you will have to do it all alone. If you stay with it long enough it will come together as long as you are in a business where you can make money. If you feel that you can't (make money) then drop it but never ever take any one elses word for it. What is the worst that I can happen. You will fail and will have a few thousand dollars in credit card debt. When that happens go full circle to point (a) to the raisen bread and butter diet and you will be fine. It is actually quite filling when you get used to it and throw in a jar of blue berry jam.

If you don't have a job - Just remove the part of point (a) where I talk about putting aside 10% - 15% of your paycheck. Every thing else (a, b, c & d) still applies.