How To Start A Startup With No Money (2021)

What is a startup?

A startup is a venture or a business that is initiated by its founders and comes with the problem solving product in front of the entire world and makes a profit by selling their solution.

A startup is a new business that is started by an entrepreneur with a goal to become a scalable and viable model. 

Thousands of people come up with great ideas for starting a business every day. 

Hundreds of these ideas have the potential to turn into a successful venture with high profitability and sustainability. 

However, only a few of these ideas develop into a successful full-fledged business. 

This is because having a great idea is only the stepping stone towards building a business. 

Getting a startup up and running requires a lot of determination along with the appropriate resources. 

If you wish to build a startup, you can follow these steps to become next big startup:

How To Start A Startup With No Money

If you are ready to start your startup with an entrepreneur mindset, these steps will help you to build a successful startup.

1) Be passionate with a broad vision

Before deciding to start your venture, think about what is the ultimate goal you want to achieve with it. 

Think about the impact you want to create on society with your work. Identify the problems around you; what is something that needs to be solved. 

Think about how you can solve that problem with your business. 

It may be in the form of a service like or a product; not necessarily a new offering. It may even be an up-gradation of an existing offering.

However, there is no set plan for being passionate. Some ways you can imbibe these qualities in your personality is by interacting with diverse groups of people. 

Talk to them; understand their plight. Be open to ideas. These small steps can help you go a long way.

2) Do thorough research

Once you have identified the problem you wish to solve with your offering, the next step is to conduct research and understand the market for it; who is your target market, who are the competitors, what are the potential setbacks, etc. 

Study the various geographies, demographics and take a decision based on data and facts. 

Use primary as well as secondary sources. Do not rely on intuition or common knowledge to make decisions. You might even find a few myth busters. 

Segment the market and form your strategy. Do not focus on just your own business. 

You should also understand the industry and economic conditions. This step will tell you whether the business is actually feasible or not; and if it is, what is the best way to move forward.

3) Validation of your proposal

Everything exists only in your head until now. It is now time to actually test whatever you have thought until now. 

Present your proposal to various people including investors, potential partners, customers, etc. 

The primary idea is to get honest feedback and assurance for your idea. Your friends and family can be a great starting point. Ask them what they feel about your offerings; what improvements they feel can be made. 

You can use various online tools and platforms such as Google forms, LinkedIn, etc. 

You can also create landing pages and advertisements. The two go hand-in-hand and allow you to understand how many or what kind of people are interested in your offerings. 

You may launch an ad on social media and provide the link for your site. This will attract potential customers. 

A high number of converts means your offering intrigues people. You may also create a prototype, if feasible. 

This will help people get a feel of the actual product. If your idea gets enough validation, it is your green light to go ahead.

4) Form a team to take things ahead

A study has found that 50% of startups fail due to poor-performing teams. No business can be operated by a one-man-army. 

It requires a collective effort from a group of individuals to ensure smooth functioning. It is now time to hire people to join you in your venture. 

At first, you may look for partners who may be your founding partner. In most cases, there are multiple founding partners in any business. 

From here, you need to build an operational team. It is these individuals who will conduct the day-to-day operations of the business. 

It is, therefore, necessary to hire a great operational team. To hire the best team, start by identifying the various functions that need to be performed. 

Understand the level at which you will operate to hire the right number. 

Now hire the right individuals to fulfill the requirements of your business.

You have the option to either hire full-time employees or freelancers, depending on the work and the tasks you have in hand. 

For example, you can hire a freelance content writer or a freelance logo designer for one-time projects to help save cost and get work done more efficiently.  

You may use various techniques to ensure you hire the right person. Conduct interviews to test for technical and behavioral skills. You are now ready to hit the ground running.

5) Create your business strategy

Your business is now running. It is time to let everyone know about your presence in the market. 

You now need to make important strategic decisions that will affect your business in the long run. 

You have to figure out the best way to position yourself in the market; how you will attract customers, how you will survive and thrive in the competitive environment. 

The key is to think long-term. Think about the broad picture, rather than focusing on minute things. 

You may hire a specialist with vast experience to help you in this area. This will set the course for your business in the coming years. 

However, don’t be rigid with your strategy. Understand that the business environment is constantly changing. 

Therefore, you need to constantly evaluate and adapt to the needs of the market.

6) Fundraising

Once you have established an actual business model, you now have the interest of the investors. 

Until now, you have either pumped in your own money, or borrowed funds (mostly from a close friend or relative). 

You now have the need for increased funds as your business might be doing well or has big things lined up in the future. 

Moreover, you now have the statistics and numbers to show what you have achieved so far. You may opt for different sources as per your requirements. 

Some of the popular sources are as follows:

• Crowdfunding: You can get money from the public with the help of crowdfunding platforms such as Kickstarter, Indiegogo, etc. These provide you access to a large pool of potential investors and are also a great source of advertising and spreading awareness for your brand.

• Venture Capitalists: They are the big players who have the strength to pump in a lot of money into any startup. If you are able to get their interest, you can raise mighty funds and also gain credibility and traction in the market. However, getting VCs to invest is a tough task as they look for extremely high potential businesses.
• Angel Investors: They are usually individuals who pump in a lot of money single-handedly into the venture. However, they are typically close friends or family members. Therefore, it is recommended to only opt for this method when you have a high certainty of returns.