Most Important Tips on Business for Startups from Olga Fleming

I’m going to share different kinds of tips on business, on startup, how to start, to conduct a business, how to grow your business, international business as well, different incentives available in different countries. How people do business in other countries, not only my opinion but also I will interview different kinds of people, business owners, and industries.

"This article is about business and investment from different perspectives, different angles and obviously I will show you a little bit of my lifestyle, business trips here".

Now we are in Dubai and I think that’s kind of suitable to share some tips on how to start a business with no money.

That’s actually a frequent question and we tend to forget that Apple, Dell, and many other huge brands started with no money. Of course, they sourced money later on but initially, there was no startup capital. There are a few things that are even more important than talking about how to raise funds is your personal kind of feeling about money. If you are the person that will push yourself much harder.

If you have nowhere to go like if you have no job or anything else, you have no place where to take a source from, where you can take your money from. In that case, obviously you will push yourself harder but there is another type of personality, that actually feel very bad about not having the financial backup plan, not having at least specific source of income and in that case, they cannot conduct as good as for example, well if they had some kind of profits.

You should first define which type of person you are and later on, only you can start your business because if you are the type of the person what you really want to start your business but you really need this financial backup plan then you should keep either a part-time job or maybe some freelance or something else. If you are the other type of person, you should cancel any other activities and start your business.

It can be legal expertise, investment advisor, online course coaching

The other thing is, actually, the one is the most crucial is that you don’t even think of certain businesses that can be bootstrapped. There are plenty of businesses that can be done just from bootstrapping but in most cases, it requires some expertise. It can be;

• legal expertise;
• investment advisor;
• online course coaching.

Also from some expertise. Probably some ads, marketing, PR, many other spheres where you can start with almost no money and mainly surrounded by consulting activities or some setup, or management or marketing, something like that.

On the other hand, there are many businesses that actually are too small to raise funds like from venture capital companies and from private investors as well. So, in that case, you either source your money from the bank but there are certain countries where it’s kind of restricted but there are so many people that actually do not want to get involved in business activities but they are eager to invest in something and not very big because they have limited amount of funds.

Of course, you would say “I don’t want to do business with a partner”. Well, having a partner is not really that bad. You should try doing business with your partners because there is someone to back you up, there is someone to give you money. You should just put everything on paper, decide who does what and when and what you do if something happens and that’s it.

Basically, if everything is put on paper, there is no problem with you doing business with someone. I mean sometimes it’s even easier to do business with someone you don’t know instead of doing business with some family or friends because in that case, the worst-case scenario if you don’t put anything on paper, you expect him to do that, he expects you to do that and then nothing is being done or you get involved in each other’s activities which does not bring you good results.

Startup That Requires Funding

And the last stage, when you have actually the startup that requires funding and you know that this is something where you can’t raise funds, you either approach not good companies which means you approach either companies that do not deal with your specific business or you approach for example venture capital companies that are involved in later stages of funding which is actually does not give you any result.

They either ignore you or you get rejected. In many cases, they do not give you a reason why you get rejected and you just get discouraged and do not want to do business anymore, which I probably cannot understand because in my opinion approaching 10 companies is not near even close to being enough.

So, what do you do when you prepare for the money sourcing? You should first of all check what the specific industry does, which businesses do they invest in and what stages they invest in. Then you should check all the companies or some of the companies they invested in, prepare your portfolio, prepare your business plan, talk about yourself, talk about your team, vision, mission and many other things that should be prepared for money sourcing or the fundraising.

That’s kind of a tip, I hope it will help you a lot because there are plenty of opportunities in this world, how you can raise funds. You should not also forget about Government opportunities in startups. There are plenty of opportunities in different regions starting from Europe and even here in Dubai.

You can get money from the Government if you set up the business they want. Probably some innovative business. There are many incentives in different countries, you just have to go and check it.