If you’re not already familiar with the term ‘bootstrapping’, it means growing your business with little or no venture capital or outside investment. This means that bootstrapping a startup has never been more suitable to you as a potential business owner, seeing as 2020 has meant that everyone is a little low on funds and unwilling to invest in new businesses. Yet, bootstrapping a startup means that it doesn’t matter if the outside world has money or not, since it relies on your own initiative to source the funds for your new business venture. If you put it this way, it has never been a better time to launch yourself into a new project and to take a risk – what else have you got to lose at the moment?
Read on to find out our top tips for bootstrapping a Manchester startup, so that your business idea turns into a reality, and a successful one at that!
Cut Your Expenses
As you have probably prepared yourself for – and if you haven’t, then we’re here to warn you – you’re going to need to cut back on your own personal spending, as well as your business spending. You might even need to sell your car, or your beloved possessions. However, if you really believe in your startup, this is a sacrifice that you’re going to make. Without outside capital, you are relying on yourself (and your business partner, should you have one) to acquire the funding to get the ball rolling.
You should consider spending some extra time scouting out cheaper options for your new startup to save money, such as buying second-hand equipment or reasonably priced energy providers. You can compare business electricity prices via a site like Utility Bidder, for example. Nothing can be more satisfying than knowing that you alone started your business without any outside capital and investment from other businesses.
Sell Your Services
Make sure that from the outset of setting up your business project, you are able to sell your product or service so that you can raise more money to grow your business and reinvest it back into the infrastructure of your project. Sometimes, this might involve diversifying your product or service in such a way that you had not planned, in order to expand your target audience in order to gain as much revenue as possible.
Believe In Yourself
Being passionate gives you the drive and ambition to pursue your new project, no matter how hard or unlikely your dream business seems. You should never start a business on a whim, and it should be something that you have thought through carefully – especially when you are planning on relying on your own funds to fuel the business as opposed to outside capital. However, given that you are going to be committing a lot of time to this business, you need to make sure that it is going to be something you enjoy. Otherwise, you’ll give up and the business will flop without a committed owner who is willing to stick with the tough times.
Now that you’ve got a few tips and an idea of the next steps that you need to take for your new business project to bring it to life in Manchester, what are you waiting for?
