Giving Compass' Take:
- Here are five strategies for entrepreneurs that may be starting from the ground up with limited resources and networks.
- How can donors spur investment in entrepreneurship?
- Read more about becoming a successful serial entrepreneur.
What is Giving Compass?
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Many people have ideas for businesses, but they have no idea where to begin or think they need a lot of resources up front to start out. While having additional resources is beneficial, it is not a must to have a pot of gold when embarking on a new venture.
Being an entrepreneur myself, I've learned five different ways you can start a business from the ground up you might not have considered:
- Bootstrap a minimum viable product. Bootstrapping is all about starting with what you have, rather than waiting for a perfect moment and the perfect resources to start a perfect project.
- Use a customer-funded capital model. This might be hard to believe, but sometimes, people will be willing to pre-pay you for a service or product before it launches if you can show validation that you will deliver on your promise.
- Consider crowdfunding. The beauty of the internet is that it lets you reach millions of people in an instant and broadcast your idea at almost no cost.
- Think beyond your family and friends. New entrepreneurs need funds for their businesses, so many will tap into their immediate networks to ask for those funds.
- Become an intrapreneur. This one is my favorite avenues for running a business, as it is a method that has worked out very well for myself. An "intrapreneur" is essentially an entrepreneur within an existing company — someone who didn't risk their own funds to start the business but joined an existing one as a partner or has become a partner within time.
Read the full article about entrepreneurship by Sardor Akhmedov at Forbes.