Gilad Krein says that being an online entrepreneur is no easy feat. You have to come up with a promising business idea, build a reliable team, and attract customers.
This may sound cool and heroic to execute, says Gilad, but you may have to start your business with little to no money. This can be daunting, but it is possible if you are creative and resourceful.
So, in today’s blog post, let’s study Gilad Krein’s well-mapped roadmap to starting your journey as an online entrepreneur with no money.
Gilad Krein’s Roadmap to Becoming an Entrepreneur Without Money
Gilad Krein is an internet entrepreneur and an online business advisor. He is also a digital nomad who runs a personal blog sharing his business wisdom.
Gilad has laid out a practical, viable, and highly-actionable roadmap for anyone who wishes to kick start their entrepreneurial journey.
Six Fundamental Steps to Start an Online Business by Gilad Krein
Gilad’s entrepreneurial roadmap without needing funds is based on the following steps:
Work On The Idea
You can’t be an entrepreneur without a great business idea. So, the first step is brainstorming and coming up with a list of potential business ideas.
Gilad highly recommends looking at the following areas to get helpful business ideas with a huge upside potential:
Ask friends & family:
Your friends and family can be a great source of business ideas. Ask them about their everyday life and business problems and see if you can think of an intelligent way to solve their problems.
Gilad Krein says that you may be surprised at the ideas you come up with.
Study other businesses:
Look at other companies and try to find ways to improve upon what they are doing.
Can you add more value to their product or service?
Do you see any areas where they might be missing an opportunity?
By studying other businesses, you can develop creative business ideas that might have a better success ratio.
Observe trends and read market predictions:
Keep up with current trends and read market predictions to see what areas might be ripe for new businesses.
Forecasting publications like WGSN and Trend Hunter can give you a good idea of tools and technologies that will likely be in demand.
Gilad Krein suggest: Focus on a Growing Niche/Category
Once you have a list of potential business ideas, it’s time to start carefully narrowing down your options keeping the following things in mind:
First and foremost, choose an industry or niche you’re truly passionate about because entrepreneurship is a long-term game, and you’ll need passion to keep going.
Second, look for an industry or niche with low competition because it will be easier to start. For example, creating a regular fitness center or program might not be a good idea if you’re passionate about fitness.
There are already a lot of businesses in that space, and you may have a hard time differentiating your business and attracting customers.
On the other hand, if you’re passionate about something like vegan baking, consider it seriously. There may not be as many businesses in that space.
Finally, find an industry or niche with high potential for growth because it will give you more room to grow your business.
This will make it easier to execute your business idea and build a loyal customer base.
Once you’ve considered all these factors, choose the industry or niche that best fits you and your business.
Stand Out From The Market
The next step is to research your competition and determine what they’re doing wrong. This is important because you need to know how to beat the competition and stand out in your chosen market.
So, conduct a competitive analysis and analyze your competitor’s marketing strategies, products, and pricing.
This will also give you a good idea of what works and doesn’t in your industry.
Validate Your Idea
The fourth step is to validate your business idea. This means that you need to test your idea to see if there is a market for it or not.
For that, you have to understand your buyer persona. What’s that?
In simple words, describe the person most likely to buy your product or service.
Once you have defined your prospective customer, you must move towards actual “validation” of the idea and interview people closely resembling your ideal client’s description.
An initial validation step could include getting people to fill a survey with questions about pain points, solutions, pricing, and other expectations.
Or, if you have a demo product ready, creating a well-designed landing page could be an even better idea to gauge the market’s interest.
It will help you see if customers would be interested in dropping their email addresses in exchange for a discount, free membership, or any other persuasive offer.
Prepare A Solid Business Plan
Once you have a validated business idea with a decent initial response, it’s time to prepare a business plan. This may seem like a daunting task, but it’s actually not as complicated as it seems.
A business plan is a document that outlines your business goals, strategies, and how you plan to achieve them. It also includes a financial plan detailing your start-up costs, operating expenses, and revenue projections.
While a business plan is not required to start a business, it is suitable for two reasons:
- It becomes a guiding tool to establish and grow your business.
- You can share it with potential investors to raise money.
So, make sure you put in the time and effort to prepare a solid business plan for your idea.
Another valuable tip from Gilad Krein: Build Connections
Once you have created a business plan, it’s time to move towards execution and bring your ideas to reality.
And to bring a business to life, you’ll need more than determination and skill – abundant resources, guidance, and a support group. And networking is the best way to get these things relatively fast.
So, start connecting with other businesses and entrepreneurs in your industry. Build meaningful connections by attending industry events and joining relevant communities – LinkedIn is the perfect place to start!
The more people you meet, the easier it will be to find the right resources, peers, and potential investors for your business.
So, this is really it!
From idea creation to validation, market research, and networking – there’s a lot that goes behind becoming an online entrepreneur with no money!