Starting your business with NO outside money: No Capital No Collateral No Problem Small

Slide 1: Starting a business with No capital NO money? No collateral No problem No capital No collateral No problem Greg Fisher www.fisherg.blogspot.com gregcfisher@gmail.com

Slide 2: No capital No collateral No problem Perception vs reality “I am going to write a business plan, send it off to the major Venture Capitalists and then take outside finding from the one that gives me the best valuation and the best terms on the deal”

Slide 3: No capital No collateral No problem Perception vs reality “I am going to write a business plan, send it off to the major Venture Capitalists and then take outside finding from the one that gives me the best valuation and the best terms on the deal” 10 months later…… “I am going to have to make the most of what I already got and start my business using alternative forms of capital”

Slide 4: No capital No collateral No problem Alternative Capital • Energy and Passion

Slide 5: No capital No collateral No problem “Create a cause, not a business” Gary Hamel Leading the Revolution

Slide 6: No capital No collateral No problem Alternative Capital • Energy and Passion • Knowledge and Skills

Slide 7: No capital No collateral No problem “We control the most critical resource of our times: our own brains. Power is transferred from the capital investors to the competence investors.” Jonas Ridderstrale & Kjell Nordstrom Funky Business

Slide 8: No capital No collateral No problem What are you deeply passionate about? What can What drives you be your world class economic at? engine?

Slide 9: No capital No collateral No problem Alternative Capital • Energy and Passion • Knowledge and Skills • Time and Effort

Slide 10: No capital No collateral No problem You need tenacity

Slide 11: No capital No collateral No problem Alternative Capital • Energy and Passion • Knowledge and Skills • Time and Effort • Resilience and Tenacity

Slide 12: No capital No collateral No problem “There is a very, very, very fine line between success and failure …. it is about being constantly hammered and coming back from the hard times and low moments.” Robbie Brozin Nandos

Slide 13: No capital No collateral No problem Alternative Capital • Energy and Passion • Knowledge and Skills • Time and Effort • Resilience and Tenacity • Networks and Connections

Slide 14: No capital No collateral No problem “No person can do this alone, not Richard Branson, not Bill Gates, nobody. You need to link up with people who compliment your skills” Robbie Brozin Nandos

Slide 15: No capital No collateral No problem “Nothing the slightest bit amazing has ever been done in isolation. Individual competitiveness = what you know x who you know” Jonas Ridderstrale & Kjell Nordstrom Funky Business

Slide 16: No capital Energy and Passion • No collateral No problem • Knowledge and Skills • Time and Effort • Resilience and Tenacity • Networks and Connections

Slide 17: No capital No collateral No problem Alternative Capital “Take away my people, but leave my factories, and soon grass will grow on the factory floors. Take away my factories, but leave my people, and soon we will have a new and better factory.” Andrew Carnegie

Slide 18: No capital No collateral No problem BOOTSTRAPPING

Slide 19: No capital No collateral No problem Bootstrapping - As an allusion to lifting oneself up by one's own bootstraps … using a special process to perform a task that one would be unable to do in general wikipedia.org

Slide 20: No capital No collateral No problem Seven strategies for bootstrapping your business

Slide 21: No capital No collateral No problem 1. Self

Slide 22: No capital No collateral No problem Self • Break the golden handcuffs - Start saving - Live on less “Either you want this and you will make the sacrifices or you don’t want it and you should keep your current job”

Slide 23: No capital No collateral No problem

Slide 24: No capital No collateral No problem Self • Break the golden handcuffs • DIY “You will be amazed at just how much YOU can do if you put your mind to it”

Slide 25: Paul Simon – Young Designers Emporium No capital No collateral No problem Paul Simon launched his first YDE Store for less than R20000. He did all the shop fitting himself, got his mom to make sandwiches for the launch party and used a toolbox for a cash register in the first month of trading … 10 years later he sold YDE for more than R200 million.

Slide 26: No capital No collateral No problem Self • Break the golden handcuffs • DIY • Back yourself Research shows that the things that set entrepreneurs apart from the rest of the population are self confidence and optimism

Slide 27: No capital No collateral No problem 2. Services

Slide 28: No capital No collateral No problem Services • Work in parallel Sell your time while you build your product - selling times creates cash flow

Slide 29: No capital No collateral No problem

Slide 30: No capital No collateral No problem Services • Work in parallel • Keep the end in mind

Slide 31: Nkhensani – Stoned Cherrie No capital No collateral No problem Nkhesani first did designs clothing design on an item by item basis for clients to generate cash flow … she now owns an international clothing brand and chain of retail stores. Her end was always to go global but she needed to start somewhere.

Slide 32: No capital No collateral No problem 3. Start

Slide 33: No capital No collateral No problem Start • Ship then test

Slide 34: No capital No collateral No problem

Slide 35: No capital No collateral No problem If he (Microsoft) can do it then you can do it. Get your product or service out there

Slide 36: No capital No collateral No problem Start • Ship then test • Get going You don’t need and MBA, a PhD or any other fancy letters behind your name to start a business … what you do need to do is GET STARTED

Slide 37: No capital No collateral No problem 4. Sell [upfront]

Slide 38: No capital No collateral We sold R100,000 worthproblem No of advertising space to preferred suppliers before we even assembled our first BUSINESS-IN-A-BOX See www.biz-box.net

Slide 39: No capital No collateral No problem 5. Suppliers

Slide 40: No capital No collateral No problem Suppliers • Extend credit

Slide 41: No capital No collateral No problem Suppliers • Extend credit • Partner and barter

Slide 42: James Hong – HOT or NOT No capital No collateral No problem

Slide 43: James Hong – HOT or NOT No capital James Hong set up the dating website No collateral www.hotornot.com with nothing. He put a couple of friends’ pictures on the web and asked others to vote No problem whether they were “hot” or “not”. He also allowed others to load pictures of themselves to find out if they were “hot” or “not”. Next thing he knew he was getting hundreds of thousands of page views and sucking up massive amounts of bandwidth. After transitioning onto the U of Berkley server he realized he needed a better solution. He negotiated with rackspace for a free hosting solution in exchange for talking about rackspace (who were going IPO at the time) every time he was interviewed by the press. Hot or not now makes in excess of $10 million per year working no more than a few hours a week. See http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/06/no-plan- no-capi.html for the full story

Slide 44: No capital No collateral No problem 6. Swap and Share

Slide 45: No capital No collateral No problem 6. swap and share • Barter You have got what others want … you want what others got … so do deal where it makes sense - AOL do it, Google do it, Yahoo do it … WHY SHOULDN’T YOU DO IT?

Slide 46: No capital No collateral No problem 6. swap and share • Barter • Co-buy, co-use Do you really need your own board room, receptionist, server, call center etc???? Go through your list of required assets and identify what you could share with others

Slide 47: No capital No collateral No problem 7. Cash

Slide 48: No capital No collateral No problem Cash • Cash flow vs profit “Revenue is vanity... margin is sanity... CASH IS KING”

Slide 49: No capital No collateral No problem Cash • Cash flow vs profit • Bank balance is your truth

Slide 50: No capital No collateral No problem

Slide 51: No capital No collateral No problem Cash • Cash flow vs profit • Bank balance is your truth • Timing

Slide 52: No capital No collateral No problem Cash • Cash flow vs profit • Bank balance is your truth • Timing • Know your numbers

Slide 53: No capital No collateral No problem Seven strategies for bootstrapping your business

Slide 54: No capital 1. Self No collateral No problem 2. services 3. Start 4. Sell [UPFRONT] 5. Suppliers 6. Swap and share 7. Cash

Slide 55: Starting a business with no No capital money? No collateral No problem No capital No collateral No problem Greg Fisher www.fisherg.blogspot.com gregcfisher@gmail.com