Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Starting any business is an ambitious, both a potentially rewarding but also a perilous feat. Online business are more prevalent now than ever before, and there are a separate set of considerations for starting and online business versus a traditional bricks and mortar business. The following contributed post is thus entitled, How To Bootstrap Your Online Business.
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When it comes to starting an online business, there’s no doubt that it can be an expensive thing to get up and running. With so many things to have in place, it can be quite off-putting and you may wonder if it’s even financially possible for you to start an online business without taking out loads of cash loans.
The good news is, it’s completely possible to do it and when you’re just starting out it’s actually advisable to bootstrap until you know it’s something that’s actually working because you don’t want to invest a ton of money into something that simply doesn’t work and then you end up losing everything you put into it.
In this post, we’re going to give you some tips on how exactly you can bootstrap your online business.
Realize that not everything needs to be brand new:
Especially when starting an online business, then one of the main things you’re likely going to need is a computer, and although it can be tempting to buy the latest model with all the bells and whistles, this is something that will eat into the costs of starting your business, so you need to shop around and you’ll soon see that you can actually pick up great things like computers and other things you need by buying second hand. The fact that it’s second hand doesn’t mean it’s going to be any less of a good quality machine – you can either buy direct from someone who’s selling something because they never really used it or you can buy a refurbished item that’s basically the same as a brand new one, but for a fraction of the cost.
Avoid bright shiny object syndrome:
Bright shiny object syndrome is something that affects many people, and business owners are pretty badly affected by it – especially since you’re going to be excited about starting your business, it can be difficult to avoid buying all the things you think you need, but that are actually nothing more than a distraction. To avoid this, you need to discipline yourself and keep things simple within your business. Allow yourself to get clear about what things you actually need for running your business and just stick to those – you can always add new things on later if you need to.
Learn things yourself:
One of the best things a business owner can do is outsource all the things they don’t enjoy and that they aren’t particularly good at, but in the beginning if you’re trying to bootstrap, then you need to be able to learn these things for yourself. Sure it may take a bit of time and mean you’re working a lot, but even when you come to outsource these things later, they can be useful if you already know how to do them and have to step in for a day or teach someone else how to do them.
Have a plan and stay focused:
As a business owner, failing to plan is planning to fail so it’s super important that you make yourself a clear plan and stick to it so that you don’t get distracted by thinking you have to do all the things and get every shiny new thing out there.
