How to Start a Business Without Taking a Bank Loan

Every business has an entry cost, and when this entry cost is too high or unfeasible for most people, it becomes a barrier to entry.

For example, the high cost of registering with the municipality, acquiring vehicles, maintaining them, hiring drivers, and having an office can be considered a barrier to entry for owning a taxi fleet.

But the beauty of the world lies in the fact that barriers to entry are just mountains seen from afar. No matter how large they seem to our eyes, there is always someone who can climb them. Mount Everest has been climbed by more than 6,000 people. The business of our dreams is never just a step on a ladder but the top of a mountain.

A taxi fleet can start with your personal vehicle, a supermarket can start with the grocery store you have on your porch.

For people who don’t have money or access to bank loans, the only way to start a small business is by creating a micro business operation. There are many stories of people who started by washing cars on the street and today own chains of car washes. The only way to create a medium-sized business is by creating one or several small businesses. The only way to create a large business is through one or several medium-sized businesses.

This is a time-consuming process but full of learning. It is a natural process of development and growth, and along the way, opportunities and doors will open, not because we knock on them, but because they are automatic doors with sensors that recognize an entrepreneur on a mission.

Using the perspectives expressed here, the entry cost for a burger joint involves:

1. Money for acquiring government or municipal registrations and permits, buying a fryer, paying three months’ rent, utilities like electricity and water, purchasing chairs and tables, buying initial inventory for preparing burgers, saving enough to cover at least three months of employee salaries, funds for marketing, branding, and signage, and purchasing a billing system.

Or

2. The discipline to improve the recipe (using inexpensive tools like Digital Manager to monitor your profit) and saving money to set things up.

Stélio Inácio The Entrepreneurial Experience Day 3