hi I’m Evan Carmichael welcome to a
special edition of ask Evan today we’re
going to talk about how you can take
action on your business ideas without
having a lot of money notice a common
question entrepreneurs have so we’re
going to answer it here today in this
video today’s video is brought to you by
Telus talks business they have a social
media contest that they have put on we
can win some cool prizes from Samsung go
check it out on this website here at the
top and basically if you tweet out any
of their tweets from their major Twitter
account which is Telus business here
with the hashtag social for bids you can
win a whole bunch of different samsung
galaxy prizes so hopefully it’s cool
you’ll check it out and so thank you
tell us response from this video today’s
question comes from one of our readers
on our telescopes business post who
wrote in and I’m going to go find the
question of you guys to check out it’s
from Teddy so Teddy rodin thanks Evan
for these encouraging messages that you
post to my email I have great business
ideas but lock money to put them into
reality what can I possibly do so thanks
for the question teddy again the common
question a lot of entrepreneurs have and
that really holds them back and so I’m
going to give you a couple tips here to
be able to help you get past those
hurdles the first option is the boots
job and it’s honestly my favorite way to
be able to do it and this is coming from
a guy who has a background in venture
capital and raising capital for
entrepreneurs the best way to start a
company is to bootstrap it up if you are
looking for finance I’ll give you some
tips later on but the bootstrap the best
way to do it is to build around the
customer so you go start talking to
potential customers you find out what
problems they have find out what their
pain points are and you offer to build
the solution that can help them with
those major pain point entrepreneurs too
often go the other way about it with a
creative product or service and then go
and try to sell it and often spend a lot
of money time energy investment getting
this product or service off the ground
and it turns out the customers don’t
really want it or they want something
that’s different so the best way to be
able to do it without losing a lot of
resources is to go and start talking to
actual customer
find out what their problems are and
offer to help them see if they’re
willing to pay you to do it and if they
are you’ve started a business and you
have cash coming in and that’s the best
way to ensure that you can get beyond
the survival stage the next thing can do
to help bootstrap to start with the
service services are low-cost you don’t
have to invest a lot of money to get the
service business off the ground and it
gets you close to your customers so you
get to understand their needs better
you’re working more intimately with them
and you build cash flow so you have
money coming into your company that if
you’re bigger you know vision is to be
able to build a product that you can you
know better leverage then a service then
a good way to start is still with the
service because you get to know your
customers better figure out what their
true problems are and then again build a
product around their needs that you can
then leverage to go to other customers
and while you’re building your product
company you still have cash flow from
your service business be able to support
yourself now if you don’t want to boot
stop and you really want to go and get
financing a couple ways to do it depends
on how much money you’re trying to raise
the first one that most people think
about our banks the challenge with banks
is that you need to have really good
personal credit you often need to give
that personal guarantee unless you’ve
been in business for usually three years
they want to see that you’re going to
personally guarantee so really doesn’t
matter too much what your business is
going to be about they want to hold on
to an asset just in case you don’t
deliver so they could take your house or
other assets that you own so typically
it’s not really a great source of
start-up capital for entrepreneurs it’s
more for people who already in business
and have a proven case and are looking
for money to expand the next source you
can look at his love money and that’s
friends and family and it’s usually a
little bit of money you know in the low
thousands of dollars and you’re
basically looking at anybody who knows
you and likes you and like the story
wants to be involved you’re going to you
know your friends family old
kindergarten class mates old co-workers
who ever you can think of who you know
would be potentially interested in your
story and you got to think long and hard
about who you want involved in your
company
they’re going to have an active role in
your business or not do you want Uncle
Joe as part of your company or not you
know is having you know dinners with him
then going to be awkward because you’re
he’s also an invest in your company and
you also want to think about is there
any issues of him joining the company so
sometimes the people who invest in the
business they’re also going to want to
have some kind of management role with
the company so do you want him to take
an active role in the business or not so
that’ll be something that is determined
as you start talking to people but
something that you probably want to
think about before you actually go and
start asking for money the next group
would be angel investors and these are
wealthy individuals often business
owners or dentists or doctors and they
have made some money and are looking to
make some investments and typically hear
you you know they have various degrees
of sophistication some of them have only
invested in the stock market and others
have actually done investments in
business before and it really ranges so
you may have a really sophisticated
investor really understands the ins and
outs of angel investing and you may get
somebody who’s never done before but has
money to spend so you gotta set
expectations and you’re going to come
across a lot of different potential
types so you know I guess be a little
weary and make sure that you get your
structure done up properly if you’re
looking for an angel investor you want
to make sure they bring you more than
just money you want to make sure they’re
going to give you some kind of contacts
and connections and will help get you
more customers and partnerships and
media so you definitely want somebody
who’s more than just a check you want
someone who’s going to try to help your
business maybe not as an active
management role but actually you know
does something to be able to help build
your business and has some contacts I
can shortcut your success a little bit
more and in terms of finding them most
people don’t put up on a website and
saying hey I’m an angel investor because
they get you know they’ll get bombarded
with with ads for people who are kind of
submit their their business plans so
most angel deals will happen through
informal networks so you’re talking to
people who know people who know people
and a lot of times it happens through
lawyers and accountants because they’re
dealing with various business owners and
investors on a regular basis so you
definitely want to start putting the
word out saying you’re looking for an
angel investor here’s my business
concept and you know pick one you said
you had many ideas pick the one you
think gives you the best chance a
success and start trying to connect
especially with lawyers and accountants
to let them know what you’re doing and
what you’re looking for now you know one
one final word i guess and there’s a lot
of people who feel like they are trying
to start a business but they can’t go
because they don’t have a lot of money
don’t let it be an excuse for you not to
get started too many people use it as a
crutch to say oh I don’t have any money
so I can’t start a business you don’t
need money in this sort of business you
don’t you don’t need a lot of resources
start a business we just need to be
resourceful so a lot of the most
successful entrepreneurs in the world
started with nothing and they you know
they scrapped around and they were
extremely resourceful and they use what
they had to be able to start a small
company and then build it up and build
it into a world recognizable brand name
so again it’s not about how many
resources you have but how resourceful
you are with what you do and don’t let
that be an excuse to not to get started
I hope you guys enjoyed this video and I
was able to answer your question if you
do like the video please give it a
thumbs up below it always encourages me
to want to make more of these videos for
you guys unless you know what you think
and it also love to hear your feedback
if you want to leave a comment under the
video love to see those I always read
every comment that comes in and I really
do appreciate them and remember again
this video is brought to you by telus
arts business and if you want to enter
the challenge just go check out at telus
business on twitter and you can retweet
any other messages with the hashtag
social for biz and you might win one of
the samsung galaxy prizes that are being
offered so thank you and we’ll see you
on the next episode
you
you
special edition of ask Evan today we’re
going to talk about how you can take
action on your business ideas without
having a lot of money notice a common
question entrepreneurs have so we’re
going to answer it here today in this
video today’s video is brought to you by
Telus talks business they have a social
media contest that they have put on we
can win some cool prizes from Samsung go
check it out on this website here at the
top and basically if you tweet out any
of their tweets from their major Twitter
account which is Telus business here
with the hashtag social for bids you can
win a whole bunch of different samsung
galaxy prizes so hopefully it’s cool
you’ll check it out and so thank you
tell us response from this video today’s
question comes from one of our readers
on our telescopes business post who
wrote in and I’m going to go find the
question of you guys to check out it’s
from Teddy so Teddy rodin thanks Evan
for these encouraging messages that you
post to my email I have great business
ideas but lock money to put them into
reality what can I possibly do so thanks
for the question teddy again the common
question a lot of entrepreneurs have and
that really holds them back and so I’m
going to give you a couple tips here to
be able to help you get past those
hurdles the first option is the boots
job and it’s honestly my favorite way to
be able to do it and this is coming from
a guy who has a background in venture
capital and raising capital for
entrepreneurs the best way to start a
company is to bootstrap it up if you are
looking for finance I’ll give you some
tips later on but the bootstrap the best
way to do it is to build around the
customer so you go start talking to
potential customers you find out what
problems they have find out what their
pain points are and you offer to build
the solution that can help them with
those major pain point entrepreneurs too
often go the other way about it with a
creative product or service and then go
and try to sell it and often spend a lot
of money time energy investment getting
this product or service off the ground
and it turns out the customers don’t
really want it or they want something
that’s different so the best way to be
able to do it without losing a lot of
resources is to go and start talking to
actual customer
find out what their problems are and
offer to help them see if they’re
willing to pay you to do it and if they
are you’ve started a business and you
have cash coming in and that’s the best
way to ensure that you can get beyond
the survival stage the next thing can do
to help bootstrap to start with the
service services are low-cost you don’t
have to invest a lot of money to get the
service business off the ground and it
gets you close to your customers so you
get to understand their needs better
you’re working more intimately with them
and you build cash flow so you have
money coming into your company that if
you’re bigger you know vision is to be
able to build a product that you can you
know better leverage then a service then
a good way to start is still with the
service because you get to know your
customers better figure out what their
true problems are and then again build a
product around their needs that you can
then leverage to go to other customers
and while you’re building your product
company you still have cash flow from
your service business be able to support
yourself now if you don’t want to boot
stop and you really want to go and get
financing a couple ways to do it depends
on how much money you’re trying to raise
the first one that most people think
about our banks the challenge with banks
is that you need to have really good
personal credit you often need to give
that personal guarantee unless you’ve
been in business for usually three years
they want to see that you’re going to
personally guarantee so really doesn’t
matter too much what your business is
going to be about they want to hold on
to an asset just in case you don’t
deliver so they could take your house or
other assets that you own so typically
it’s not really a great source of
start-up capital for entrepreneurs it’s
more for people who already in business
and have a proven case and are looking
for money to expand the next source you
can look at his love money and that’s
friends and family and it’s usually a
little bit of money you know in the low
thousands of dollars and you’re
basically looking at anybody who knows
you and likes you and like the story
wants to be involved you’re going to you
know your friends family old
kindergarten class mates old co-workers
who ever you can think of who you know
would be potentially interested in your
story and you got to think long and hard
about who you want involved in your
company
they’re going to have an active role in
your business or not do you want Uncle
Joe as part of your company or not you
know is having you know dinners with him
then going to be awkward because you’re
he’s also an invest in your company and
you also want to think about is there
any issues of him joining the company so
sometimes the people who invest in the
business they’re also going to want to
have some kind of management role with
the company so do you want him to take
an active role in the business or not so
that’ll be something that is determined
as you start talking to people but
something that you probably want to
think about before you actually go and
start asking for money the next group
would be angel investors and these are
wealthy individuals often business
owners or dentists or doctors and they
have made some money and are looking to
make some investments and typically hear
you you know they have various degrees
of sophistication some of them have only
invested in the stock market and others
have actually done investments in
business before and it really ranges so
you may have a really sophisticated
investor really understands the ins and
outs of angel investing and you may get
somebody who’s never done before but has
money to spend so you gotta set
expectations and you’re going to come
across a lot of different potential
types so you know I guess be a little
weary and make sure that you get your
structure done up properly if you’re
looking for an angel investor you want
to make sure they bring you more than
just money you want to make sure they’re
going to give you some kind of contacts
and connections and will help get you
more customers and partnerships and
media so you definitely want somebody
who’s more than just a check you want
someone who’s going to try to help your
business maybe not as an active
management role but actually you know
does something to be able to help build
your business and has some contacts I
can shortcut your success a little bit
more and in terms of finding them most
people don’t put up on a website and
saying hey I’m an angel investor because
they get you know they’ll get bombarded
with with ads for people who are kind of
submit their their business plans so
most angel deals will happen through
informal networks so you’re talking to
people who know people who know people
and a lot of times it happens through
lawyers and accountants because they’re
dealing with various business owners and
investors on a regular basis so you
definitely want to start putting the
word out saying you’re looking for an
angel investor here’s my business
concept and you know pick one you said
you had many ideas pick the one you
think gives you the best chance a
success and start trying to connect
especially with lawyers and accountants
to let them know what you’re doing and
what you’re looking for now you know one
one final word i guess and there’s a lot
of people who feel like they are trying
to start a business but they can’t go
because they don’t have a lot of money
don’t let it be an excuse for you not to
get started too many people use it as a
crutch to say oh I don’t have any money
so I can’t start a business you don’t
need money in this sort of business you
don’t you don’t need a lot of resources
start a business we just need to be
resourceful so a lot of the most
successful entrepreneurs in the world
started with nothing and they you know
they scrapped around and they were
extremely resourceful and they use what
they had to be able to start a small
company and then build it up and build
it into a world recognizable brand name
so again it’s not about how many
resources you have but how resourceful
you are with what you do and don’t let
that be an excuse to not to get started
I hope you guys enjoyed this video and I
was able to answer your question if you
do like the video please give it a
thumbs up below it always encourages me
to want to make more of these videos for
you guys unless you know what you think
and it also love to hear your feedback
if you want to leave a comment under the
video love to see those I always read
every comment that comes in and I really
do appreciate them and remember again
this video is brought to you by telus
arts business and if you want to enter
the challenge just go check out at telus
business on twitter and you can retweet
any other messages with the hashtag
social for biz and you might win one of
the samsung galaxy prizes that are being
offered so thank you and we’ll see you
on the next episode
you
you
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