Don’t Shelve Your Startup Idea Because You Don’t Have Funding

You may think that before you can launch your startup you need significant savings or venture capital. While seed money is helpful, it is not a requirement. Money to launch your startup does not guarantee its success.

Create Something That Makes Life Easier for Everyone Else

The very popular email program MailChimp was founded by Ben Chestnut in 2000. He was running another business and found himself with many clients who wanted his company to design emails for them. Chestnut was not crazy about designing emails. In fact, he hated the thought of email design, so much so that he shifted his focus to innovate a platform that would automate the entire email process. MailChimp was launched and today it is a $400 million business.

Focus on What You Have

While it is fine to dream about what you want your startup to become, it’s best not to get lost in the intricacies of organizational charts. The first step is to take the resources you have and innovate. Shutterstock is a great example. Founder Jon Oringer had a job as a software developer, but his passion was photography and he had an extensive photo collection. He put the two together and designed one of the most popular stock photo platforms today.

Prioritize Income Generation

You don’t need venture capital to start earning money from your startup. In fact, this should not be your first priority. Build customer loyalty and an income stream from your startup. Then, living on a tight budget at first, you will have all that you need to be successful. Jumping into the sales market right away also helps you refine your services or product. A great example is LootCrate who began charging customers within the first week of launch. They didn’t raise VC until after they already had 600,000 customers and were bringing in $100 million in revenue.