Starting a start-up from scratch

Aina Lucien Razafindraibe
4 min readApr 21, 2020

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Photo by Razvan Chisu on Unsplash

It ‘s possible to launch an enterprise with zero money. I know out there a lot of folks having hard time believing that. Well, maybe they have heard that before from someone who didn’really know its meaning. But here I am going show you it’s possible but really it depends on your situation right now.

‘Not even a food on the table’

We may be in the position that even food is a problem. Here you need to make money as quick as possible. I’m sorry to tell you that creating the best « app » won’t solve your problem here. Yes, we can make a lot from « well-thought » apps but most of the time it won’t generate money in the near future. There are three things you can do here :

- sell some of your belongings

- Ask to sell someone’s things

- Sell your skills

The first one is pretty straightforward. Right ? Not for so many persons.Some don’t want to give a negative social image ( especially when they were wealthy). For the others, it is too much dread ? ‘What happens if it doesn’t work properly ? They may think that I am a scammer.’ Let me tell you something. Nobody can predict the future. Even the best company, enterprise out there couldn’t know if their « best » product would last more than a week. Trust me I have some background in electronic. So just relax and take the money and enjoy the meal ! At worse, you pay back their money but you know I’m not asking you to be dishonest here. Just try to get as much time as possible (I am going repair it, I am going to have someone look at it,etc).

Ask someone who has trust in you

I am probably sure that you know more than two people. By ‘know’, I mean that they know you have integrity. Maybe one of them sell some products or they just have to. You know, they are broke, too. Just tell them that you know someone who wants it. Now go online and sell it on « ebay » or other platform. If you happen to be some of those that are friends to store owner, you can also talk to him and sell his products. It doesn’t matter what kind of things he sells, the point here is to make money. Just be humble

Sell you skills

I can hear from here you screaming “I don’t have any skills”. Really ? Let’s look at that in depth. But first what I mean by selling your skills is to teach others. So you think that you are skillless, I don’t really believe that. You may love reading ? Why not suggesting some friends to edit their writing ? Or even give a course on what makes a good reading ? You know the key is to set yourself free from self-limiting belief. And try to determine those skills through the activities you do and not by that inner voice.

Now that you have food on the table, let’s see now how to make a recurring revenue

Charge customers in advance

Use you brain and find what people may need right now. After you picked that one out, now create a website or Facebook page who may resolve their hassles. The page doesn’t have to be very fancy, just a landing page will make it. To be frank, it works best with training. I remember when I launched my Bootcamp I didn’t have a damn thing. I was sure that people needed my services. So I created a facebook page and you know I did a lot advertising (by that I shared it like crazy on different interest group). Observers from outside thought that it was a failure (‘ He kept asking me if I have students subscribing since he saw no one commenting the post but in the background I got a lot of private messages which turned to money). In the end I got a dozen of students without using paid advertisements.

Focus heavily on client retention

It’s very important. Make sure that their concerns are heard if a customer has any issues with your services or your products. Even if you can’t solve their problem, let them see that you have gave it a try. Very important. What will drive your business growth is how you acquire new customers. Guess what ? Those new clients won’t be oblivious to you business reviews.

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Aina Lucien Razafindraibe

Entrepreneur. Founder of Bootcamp Fullstack Tana.@Ivatois on twitter