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Get your personal business started

by bernt & torsten

Is a new year, you want to do something for yourself and create a business for yourself, just one problem you have a strict budget, a limited budget should not stop you. You can start a business with very little money if you have the right combination of skills, work ethic and the skills of marketing yourself.

To get started you need to have the drive to make it work, you need to be excited about what you are going to do, create a list with your skills that could be helpful to others and particularly about the combination of those skills.

Skills

When you have your list of skills done, you can start looking at ways you could use these skills to start a business.

One way to start a business with little to no startup capital is to sell your services, instead of a physical product. There’s a huge variety of services you can offer, depending on your background and interests.

Services

When you are selling a service, you will need a marketing plan to make sure your name and company get in front of the people who may need the service – here are some sites you can use for marketing your service depending on what you offer:

• Fiverr – The World’s Leading Marketplace for Services.
• Upwork – Hire freelancers and find freelance jobs instantly
• Taskrabbit – TaskRabbit is an online and mobile marketplace that allows users to outsource small jobs and tasks to others in their neighborhood.
• Skillshare – Skillshare is a learning community for creators.
• Udemy – Udemy is an online education marketplace with a limitless variety
• Verbling – Earn money teaching your language online.
• Airtasker – Airtasker is a freelance marketplace where you can find people who can do the task for you. 

Making something to sell

If your skillset is that you can make something, that should be your path to your business. Making something has an initial cost of supplies depending on what you are making, the benefits are that you could sell the product you make many times over their actual cost. When you have made something you can sell your product online, there are many options for selling online.

• Shopify – Shopify makes it easy to start a business and sell online.
• Zazzle – Selling your designs on t-shirts, bags, mugs online.
• Etsy – the largest online market for almost anything homemade, from jewelry to wooden toys for kids.
• Bonanza is another growing handmade marketplace, similar to Etsy.
• eBay is one of the biggest online e-commerce marketplaces for almost anything a great choice for selling items.

When you have your product ready to sell, do not limited yourself to sell your products on one platform, signup on multiple platforms to get the most exposure possible. If you are selling physical goods, make sure your inventory stays updated on all sites you have a storefront on.

Resell something is another option that you could, if you want to get started quickly and do not have any products available, or if you don’t consider yourself a creative person. This can be done through a variety of ways or channels:

• Thrift stores and garage sales: If you know where to look, you can find items at thrift stores, antique shops, flea markets, and garage sales and resell them online or in your local community for more than you purchased them for.
• Dropshipping: Set up an online store and partner with drop-shipping companies that will do all the order fulfillment for you. Online e-commerce platform Shopify has a great drop shipping guide, and Tim Ferriss does a good job of explaining drop shipping in his well-known book, The Four Hour Work Week.

What service would you need to get started

Having a website would be important for your service/product, to show examples of your work, list your experience, and blog about your industry to draw visitors. You can signup for a free website on WordPress.com if you are not that handy in setting up a website, theme it, you could find freelancers to do it for you for an additional cost.

You can use sites such as Fiverr or Upwork to build up your own company as well as finding a designer for a logo, marketing materials, social media setup, and website creation.

A business requires ingenuity and a passion for what you are doing. Once you find yourself doing something you enjoy, you will be more likely to find ways to make it all come together.

If you need a customizable business plan or/and customizable financial plan templates read this article – Business and financial startup templates