No Money to Start a Business? Here’s Why The Money Excuse Is Not Real

Today, I’m going to address an issue that I’ve seen way too many people throw out in entrepreneurship. That is the “I don’t have money to start a business” line. Now, I’ve seen this going around and around in people’s heads and let me be the first to tell you – this is an excuse. Money is not the issue. You don’t need money to start a business.

Get A Job If You Have To

The most common line is “I don’t have money to eat – I  can’t start a business”. First off, I didn’t have money when I started my business around 6 years ago. When I was a student, I didn’t have money. So what did I do? I went and got a job. I actually had 13 jobs by the age of 22. It seems self-explanatory that if you’re a student and you need money, then you go and get a job.

I had part-time jobs as bartender, a waiter, and least desirably, I worked in a factory. But I did it and I don’t regret it. Another thing that I did when I was 16 was I opened up the Yellow Pages and I started calling random local companies. I would find a company and immediately ask, “I heard you have a job – is the position still open?” Often the response was a curt “No, no – we don’t have a job”, but I would just call the next one.

Where There’s A Will…

I went through literally dozens of companies until I found a job at the age of 16. Some of them would say, “Who did you hear about this job from?” I would evade the question, saying “Oh, I don’t know, like a friend from school… I don’t want to say his name, maybe he’ll get in trouble”, stuff like that. But I found a job.

Then, when I was in my early 20’s as a student I went to art galleries and I sold art. I didn’t know anything about art, but I sold it anyway. I went from gallery to gallery and I made it happen. That is how it works. Find a way to get it done.

No Money To Start A Business? GET UP. Work Towards It

The more time you spend at home creating new excuses, telling yourself how little money you have, the less time you are actually taking action to change your situation. You’re giving yourself  a rationale to do nothing at all. It’s hard work to start a company, that’s a given, and yes, you need money to eat. If it comes down it, go live with your parents. Go get a job and work on your company at night. Get a job 2 nights a week, that’s enough to survive.

Don’t spend money on iPhones. Just get a job, invest in your company and you’re going to have plenty of cash down the road. Don’t worry about that. I used to walk straight into company offices and say, “You need a marketer”. I got a client from that. In fact, I got 2 clients from doing that in 2011. There’s really no excuse.

I have a friend who is fully employed, has a full time job, and no prior sales experience. He himself just picked up the Yellow Pages, started calling companies, and sold websites. This is not rocket science. Anyone can do this. He doesn’t even do the websites himself, he just gets someone to do them for a cheap price and then sells the websites to a company.

This Is What Success Looks Like

This is what business looks like. This is what it takes to succeed in business. Stop sitting on your hands! Stand up and go do your work. There’s no excuse. There’s no way that you’re going to succeed unless you hustle. And while you’re at it, you should go read Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson.

In his first 20 years in business, all he basically did was just stay on his phone and hustle. Get sales, get deals, just make it happen. As you probably know, he’s now a billionaire. But mind you – he didn’t really have any money until he was 40 or so. But once he sold his company that he worked all those years to build – Virgin Records – he became a billionaire. At the moment, his current company is worth 15 billion dollars as of last year.

So stop making the money excuse, it doesn’t exist. It’s fake, it’s in your head. No matter how real you think it is, I promise you – it’s not a fair reason to let go of your dreams. There’s a way to make it work, but if you’re not where you want to be in business at this very second, you just don’t want it hard enough. People who want it hard enough, they make it happen.