How to launch startup for less than 1000 $

Risen

Published in

The Launchism

22 min readJul 18, 2016

From an idea to successful business

Business Model Canvas. Your 20-minutes business plan.

The Business Model Canvas reflects systematically on your business model, so you’re freely to map each of its elements to your real business components. (That also means you don’t have to define or enter all of them). The following list and questions will help you brainstorm the precise idea for your next business model innovation.

The Business Model Canvas (BMC) gives you the structure of a business plan without the overhead and the improvisation of a ‘back of the napkin’ sketch without the fuzziness.

The Canvas has nine elements. which provide a pretty coherent view of a business’ key drivers:

Customer Segments: Who are the customers? What do they think? See? Feel? Do?
Value Propositions: What’s compelling about the proposition? Why do customers buy, use?
Channels: How are these propositions promoted, sold and delivered? Why? Is it working?
Customer Relationships: How do you interact with the customer through their ‘journey’?
Revenue Streams: How does the business earn revenue from the value propositions?
Key Activities: What uniquely strategic things does the business do to deliver its proposition?
Key Resources: What unique strategic assets must the business have to compete?
Key Partnerships: What can the company not do so it can focus on its Key Activities?
Cost Structure: What are the business’ major cost drivers? How are they linked to revenue?

You should use it to plan and work out how to make their offering real. Start from a blank canvas and add marks with keywords to each block. Also, you can move ideas around, as you fill out each building block in the canvas. You may want to colorize elements related to a specific client segment.

And please, be careful not to “fall in love” with your first idea and instead sketch out alternative business models for the same product, service, or technology.

Go out of the building! Talk with people

If you are Lean Startup which provide Customer Development, you should “Getting out of the Building”, because an idea or business model is just a paper and set of hypotheses. You need to test your assumption.

Actually, you should talk with customers, preferably face-to-face , but if not — telephone (Voice over Internet Protocol) works as well.

You should “ knock to the customers doors”. Our advice — do it by yourself! Hire an agency or set up a test panel is not a good idea. Don’t do it in easier way — the more you learn, the sooner you succeed. Remember as a great entrepreneur what you’re really trying to do — build the darn thing, get out and sell it. You need to ask yourself the following :

Is the problem are real problem? Can we identify needs? Do we identify a target custom segment and are they willing to pay for that?

I read a great story by Elizabeth Yin:

One team had a brilliant business idea — a hotels.com for boats. However, within 1 hour of going to a boat show in the Boston Marina, they found their idea didn’t solve a problem at all. None of their potential customers were excited about it. The funny thing is that they ran into a vendor who had been working on the same idea for the last 3 years, and he told them that he was not doing very well. So within one hour, they were able to save themselves 3 years of work, resources, time, and agony.

So that`s why “Get outside the building” — so important, but not enough. It’s a good start to truly learn what people need and validate product concepts. You must to present yourself, and it should be done in the best way.

Here are some things you must get right:

1. Plan a set of interviews to answer specific questions or test specific assumptions.

2. While talking to anyone outside your company is better than nothing, put in the extra effort to find people who represent your target customers.

3. Use your questions to create a plan for your interviews. A consistent format will make it easier to summarize your findings later.

4. Even a competitor’s website or your own website is better than nothing. A prototype you created for the interviews is best. When people can react to something real, you learn so much more than when they tell you what they think, or what they would do.

5. Ask open-ended questions, avoid leading questions, and be open to negative or difficult answers.

6. Take some time to summarize what you heard in the last set of interviews.

You already test your idea. Then time to think about name, logo & brand

The name and logo you choose for your business are nearly as important as the products or services you decide to sell. If you choose your name and logo well, they will stay in your customers’ minds and remind them of the value your company offers.

The name of your startup should align as closely as possible with your business strategy. Before you commit to a name, consider your industry, as well as how this potential name will help you grow your company. Here are several guidelines you might find useful:

Insure that name you preferred not already in use by concurrents in your in your industry.

Name should be short. Maybe two or three syllables, which will be “roll of the though ”

Looking for a memorable name which will be easy to spell. If your clients can’t find you online or struggle to share your name with their friends, you run the risk of diluting your brand.

It should be understandable. Choose a name that makes the business you are in obvious, so your potential customers won’t have to guess what you’re selling

Before you design a logo, you must understand what logo is, what it represents and supposed to do. To understand what logo is, we must first understand his mission .

A logo is for… identification.

Logo identifies a company or product via the use of a mark, flag, symbol or signature.

The most successful way to create a great logo lying in using principles of effective logo design , I call it SMATV.

Logo must be :

· S — simple

· M — memorable

· A — appropriate

· T — timeless

· V — versatile

While brainstorming logo ideas by yourself is a crucial step in creating your business image, trying to create a logo completely on your own is a mistake. It may seem like the best way to avoid the high costs of going to a professional design firm(from 5k$ and more) or freelance designer (from 20$/h) for a logo design.

Be awared, we can show you much cheaper way.

You can use 99designes :

How it works:

First — you should choose what do you need and which style do you like. Tell about your business and what you need to designed. Take your time. More details -> better designs.

Second — choose one of the package that they propose.

· Bronze — Creative designs on a budget.

· Silver — Best value for money.

· Gold— Attract expert designers.

· Platinum — Work only with the best.

Then 99 designe will share your design contest with their community of more than 1,128,000 designers. From Berlin to Bombay, professional designers will brainstorm ideas just for you.

Designers submit designs to your contest round the clock. Log into your 99designs account each day to see their designs, and let them know what hits the mark. Use ratings, comments and private messages to help designers shape their ideas to your needs. The more detailed your feedback, the easier it will be to bring your design to life. After 7 days, choose the winner of your design contest. Your designer gets the prize money and you get full design copyright. Now download your design and make it work hard for you!

Total cost : 299 $

Or you can use Graficriver

Great portal with almost half of million fronts, logos icons and more. Huge collection of hand-reviewed graphic assets from their community of designers.

So, from the huge base of designers for minimum 6$ you can choose and buy any logo which you like.

And don`t forget to protect your logo. Once you’ve produced a logo that embodies your company’s mission at a glance, make sure you trademark it to protect it from use by other companies. You can apply for a trademark at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Web site.

Legalization of your company

We will give you some information about how to legalize your company in Poland, United Kingdom and USA.

Pol- sp. Z. o.o

If you want to start a business in order to become self-employed, it is relatively easy to register at the appropriate town or voivodeship administrative office.

The first step — to apply for an entry into the register of trade (wpis do ewidencji gospodarczej). To register a business, you need to choose one or more categories from the classification of activity.

After you receive a written confirmation of a trade registration, you should go to the National Statistics Agency (Glówny Urzad Statystyczny, GUS) for apply REGON number. REGON is used on a number of other forms so you will be blocked without it.

Then you will need to register at ZUS (social insurance) and apply for a tax number (NIP). You need it for registration as a VAT taxpayer (VAT-UE) at tax office.

Registration of business activity by natural persons takes place at the Business and Information Central Register (CEIGD) and the CEIGD-1 form is available via the Internet or at the office.

Business activity can be started as early as at the date of filing. Naturally, the application can also specify a different (later) date of commencing the business.

Start business in Poland — is for free. More information you can find on www.firma.gov.pl

UK — limited company

To set up a private limited company you need to register with Companies House. This is known as ‘incorporation’. You need a company name, address, at least one director and one shareholder, agreement of all initial shareholders (‘subscribers’) to create the company — known as a ‘memorandum of association’, details of the company’s shares and the rights attached to them — known as a ‘statement of capital’, written rules about how the company is run — known as ‘articles of association’, details of people with significant control over your company, for example anyone with more than 25% shares or voting rights, your standard industry classification (SIC code — the number that identifies what your company does).

Once company is registered you’ll get a ‘Certificate of Incorporation’. This confirms that company is legal.

You can choose one of the ways to provide registration:

· online — as long as the company is limited by shares and uses standard articles of association (known as ‘model articles’)
· by post using form IN01
· using an agent
· using third-party softwareally exists and shows the company number and date of formation.

Online applications are usually registered within 24 hours and cost £12 (paid by debit or credit card or Paypal).

Postal applications take 8 to 10 days and cost £40 (paid by cheque made out to ‘Companies House’).

There’s a same day service costing £100. You must get your application to Companies House by 3pm. Your envelope (and any courier’s envelope) must be marked ‘same day service’ in the top left-hand corner After you’ve registered your company with Companies House, you’ll need to register it for Corporation Tax. Register for tax within 3 months of starting to do business. ‘Doing business’ includes buying, selling, employing someone, advertising, renting a property or certain other activities. If you will pass registration terms, you may get a penalty.

You can find more information on https://www.gov.uk/

USA — inc corporated

In the United States, corporations must pay a fee between $25 and $1,000 depending on which state, and choose an operating name. A ‘corporate name’ must have a legal ending, like “Inc.,” “Corp.,” or “Ltd.” which stand for “incorporated,” “corporation,” and “limited” respectively. The process of registering your company as one of the business structures that we’re going to outline below is different in each state.

There are six primary business models or structures that a company may choose in the United States. These include a sole proprietorship, a limited liability company (LLC), a partnership, a cooperative, a corporation, or an S corporation. But for a small business better to chose from two of them.

Sole Proprietorship

This is by far the most common and popular form of business in the United States — mostly because it’s easy to start and manage. Simply put, a sole proprietorship is an unincorporated business where there is no legal distinction between the company and the individual who owns it and runs it. This is the business model most ecommerce merchants are using.

This business type is especially good for new ecommerce companies that have a low risk of liability. The company does not need to file taxes, startup costs are very low, and the owner has complete control over the business. Get a business license your local state or county, perhaps register a name, and the business is up and running. The sole proprietorship can evolve into another business type later, but is the fastest and easiest way to start.

Note though, that taxes do need to be filed under the individual owning the sole proprietorship. The risk here is that because there is no difference between the individual and the company, the individual is personally liable for everything the company does. Thus, the individual’s personal assets are on the line. Also, once the business grows to more than one person, it can no longer be a sole proprietorship.

LLC (Limited Liability Company)

A lot of people don’t know what an LLC is, or how to get an LLC. Now it’s important to note that LLCs can differ from one state to another, but generally speaking they are a hybrid business structure, combining the ease of a partnership with the liability protection found in corporations. Owners, frequently called members, pay taxes on the LLCs profits directly and the LLC itself does not file taxes as a separate legal entity.

LLCs require a lot less record keeping than corporations do, provide some protection for the member’s personal property, and are burdened with fewer profit sharing requirements than corporations. Conversely, LLC members will have to file additional forms for both federal and state taxes depending on the number of members, local laws, or even the LLC’s articles of organization. Often the members of an LLC pay payroll tax too.

Depending on the state, LLCs may also have a limited lifetime. In some jurisdictions when a member leaves the LLC, that LLC is dissolved. Starting an LLC requires significantly more effort than forming a partnership and a business will probably want to employ a lawyer or at least consult a certified public accountant.

Summary: 420 $

Secure your startup

First step in acquiring a domain host is domain name registration . Domain names are regulated and maintained by domain name registrars, which ensure that they are not repeated. The actual domain name registration can be done directly through the registrar but most likely will be done by a third party like your hosting service. Domain names are easily readable by people, but for computers understanding they have to be linked to binary IP addresses through special servers called domain name servers (DNS). This system allows for a domain name to be transferred to another server should the webmaster decide to use a different host.

We can advise you Goddaddy.com

Only for $3.99/month you will have:

1 website

100 GB storage

Unlimited bandwidth

100 email addresses

10 MySQL databases (1GB each)

1 MSSQL database (200MB)

50 FTP users

Free domain with annual plan

Site backup & restore (paid option)

For your business to succeed, customers need to trust that you’ll protect them from viruses, hackers and identity thieves. Count on Gooddaddys security products to keep your website secure, your visitors safe and your business growing.

Design Web or business model.

There is so much talk about how web changes traditional business models. But there is little clear-cut evidence of exactly what it means.

In the most basic sense, a business model is the method of doing business by which a company can sustain itself — that is, generate revenue. The business model spells-out how a company makes money by specifying where it is positioned in the value chain.

On themeforest you can buy a great Wordpress theme for only 29$. They had more than 6000 themes to start your new website with a bang. Beautiful templates for the world’s most popular content management system.

Developing a WordPress website that will enable you to showcase and promote local businesses, events, attractions, and services requires selecting the right theme along with the specific plugins required to achieve the desired functionality.

You can find it all in Listable

Listable allows you to create a directory website that can cover pretty much any geographical area you desire.

If you’re looking for the ideal theme to help you launch your listings website, we’re going to take a closer look at exactly what Listable has to offer.

For 64 $ you will have:

· Quality checked by Envato

· Future updates

· 6 months support from pixelgrade

Try to think of your website benefits in monetary terms. This is a good time to your sales forecast. Sales projected might actually be business benefits instead of sales: increased closing percentage, increased customer satisfaction, or increased retail traffic. Think about how those benefits might fit into a sales forecast, because then you’ll be able to compare monetary benefits to expenses.

Summary: 517,00 $

Create an animation about your business.

Our brains work by associating one thing to another. So, animation about your business will help your customers to understand who you are & what you sell. You should help your customers to create “right” associations.

The biggest brands in the world have an animated characters.

Never before was it possible to leverage the power of animated characters without spending thousands (or more) for professional animator. Now you can use Feverr.

Fiverr is one of those site where you have to take small steps in using a seller. For a 5,00$ you can find someone who will create a video about your business. $ 5.00 is the bare minimum service for most sellers . The more you want done the more it’s going to cost.

With animation its great to have a description of your business. When describing your business, you need to concentrate on its structure. By structure we mean the type of operation, i.e. wholesale, retail, food service, manufacturing, or service-oriented.

You should also mention for whom you will sell , how the product will be distributed, and business support systems.

Be specific in showing how you will give your business a competitive edge.

In fact, the investor will be looking for any proprietary information that will set your concept apart from the crowd. Most investors call this the “USP” or Unique Selling Proposition. Almost every business has one ess.

Also start writing an articles about your business. If your business totally new, people should know about the existence of your product. If your business already established, you can write articles to let customers (and investors) know, that you are really professional in your area.

Write a press-release

No matter what industry you’re in and no matter how small or big your company is, you can benefit from press release distribution. You need to be sure that you have a great story to tell. Of course, you can’t get that publicity unless you tell your story. The most important thing to think about target audience. In fact, you should write different versions of your release for the different audiences you are targeting.

Better to hire a specialist to write a press-release. It`s not so expensive.

You can find a person who will write a press-relize for a 8,00 $.

Now you have an animation and press-release. Its time to build an audience.

Prowly.com will help you.

Their intuitive PR tools make it easier to manage media relations, create great content and pitch your stories to relevant audiences. No matter whether you’re a freelancer or a big agency, working alone or in a team, Prowly will make your content more visible.

You bring the content, Prowly will do the rest. Turn your ordinary press release or any article into a compelling multimedia story.

You can try it for free., Prowly have a Demo version (But in fact you will pay 89$ for a small plan)

Book a demo and one of experts will email you and schedule a 1-on-1 meeting and learn how to:

streamline your media relations efforts and improve your PR workflow

use high-quality content to establish yourself, your boss and your brand as industry leaders

develop a newsroom-style workplace that unearths content that your audience just can’t get enough of and will share over and over again.

But its not only one opportunity to build an audience. E-mailing also effective for informing as many people as possible about your business. But how to find so many e-mails? We have an answer for a question about

“How to create your own datasets in minutes ”.

With Import.io possible to choose any web and import 10K e-mails for free. The import application works like a browser.

To set up your first data extraction, open the import.io application and select the pink New button to create a new API.

Then select Extractor to create a new data extractor. Enter a URL you would like to extract data from, and select the top left toggle button to turn extraction ON.

Once you turn extraction ON, you will see some new buttons appear, but most notably a data table. You can now click or highlight anything on the page to structure it as data. A pop up box will appear asking whether there is one result, or man The yellow highlighting indicates that data has been extracted. y results on the page.

If you would like more data, for example the rating of each reseller, select +New Column and click or highlight on one of the ratings of a reseller. You can train as many columns as you’d like, and once you have the data from the page you want to extract, select the top right Done button.

Lets come back to our video. The better channel where you can paste it — YouTube.

YouTube had great advertisement channel which will help to monetize your business. Launch your video add in 3 simple steps.

1. Upload your video
2. Set a daily budget you’re comfortable with, then target the right customers for your business based on age, gender, interests and location.
3. After entering your billing information you’ll be ready to start reaching customers on YouTube.

YouTube has built-in Analytics that make it easy to see how your ad performs. You can also make adjustments to your ad at any time, and run multiple ads at once to see which works best.

Daily cost for this type of advertise from 10 to 100$.For a 10$ you will have 200 views, 71 Radio listens, 117 Newspaper reeds. You only pay when someone engages with your ad. If they skip it before 30 seconds (or the end) you don’t pay a cent.) Will be enough to spend 50–100$ for a start. But, as I said before “The more you want done the more it’s going to cost”

Spend 100$ for Facebook adds.

Why? Look at he statistic: more than 1.4 billion people use Facebook to connect with what matters to them, and more than 900 million visit every day.

When you run a Facebook Advert, you choose the audiences that see it by location, age, interests and more. With Facebook Adverts, you choose the type of people you want to reach and we deliver your adverts to them. This makes your adverts more relevant for the people who see them, and brings you real results.

Facebook advertising has some incredible targeting capabilities that can help you tailor your message and target your desired audiences. Take full advantage of Facebook advertising targeting options to create highly successful Facebook ad campaigns.

Take advantage of advanced targeting options. Facebook has a ton of awesome and unique targeting options for FB paid ads you won’t find elsewhere. You can target audiences by location, age, gender, workplace, relationship status, language, education and more.

2. Zone in on your ideal audience with interest targeting. In addition to the targeting options mentioned above, Facebook allows for some incredible deep interest targeting. This provides tremendous value, and the interest targeting capabilities alone can justify your use of Facebook advertising.

3. Make new friends or focus on the old. You can target your Facebook ads exclusively to users who are already connected to your Facebook page, or you can choose to target them and their friends, or those who aren’t connected to your page yet at all. (Remember that extending your reach may reduce the relevance of your audience and cost a little more.)

4. Keep an eye on your potential audience meter. As you add targeting options and narrow your audience, Facebook will generate an approximate number of people you’ll reach. This is only an estimate, but can help you make sure you’re not targeting too many people (or too few). Ads perform best when they’re targeted to at least a few thousand people, so consider removing some restrictions if your audience is dipping below this.

5. Narrow your target with more categories. If you only have a few interests targeted, try adding related topics in the “More Categories” section. There you’ll find options for narrowing your audience even further — choose users who have had a birthday recently, who upload a lot of photos on Facebook, etc.

6. Want to bring customers in store? Try targeting people who live in your town or local area. Couple this with Facebook Offers to be redeemed in store and see just how much in-store footfall you can get from being social.

7. Upload your mailing list to Facebook. If you’re looking to build upon existing leads, you can add a custom audience and upload your mailing list directly to Facebook, enabling you to target users you have an existing relationship with. Taking advantage of the custom audiences feature often increases ad conversion rates. You can upload a mailing list or connect directly with Mail Chimp. Just click “Create New Audience” in the Audiences section.

Also you can spend 100 $ for Google Adword.

Google AdWords is an online advertising service that enables advertisers to compete to display brief advertising copy to web users, based in part on cookies, keywords, predefined by the advertisers, that might link the copy to the content of web pages shown to users. Web pages from Google and from partner websites are designed to allow Google to select and display this advertising copy.

To start your campaign, go to https://adwords.google.com, -> “Get started now” and sign up for an AdWords account. After you’re logged in, choose “Create your first campaign”.

Select your campaign type and name. It`s easy. Then . remove the standard tick “Include search partners”. You don`t need it for now. You can always change this later.

Choose the geographic location where you’d like ads to show. Next, decide how large or small a geographic area you want to target. Click “Let me choose …” and then search for the most appropriate area for you.

Choose your “bid strategy,” and set your daily budget.

Professionals advised to change the default “Bid strategy” to “I’ll manually set my bids for clicks.” This gives you more control and will help you learn AdWords at a greater level of understanding.

Your daily budget is the maximum that Google is authorized to charge you per day. Google offers several payment options: “You can make payments before your ads show (manual payments) or make payments after your ads show, and have those payments made automatically (automatic payments). Some businesses are also eligible for a Google credit line (monthly invoicing).”

Click “Save and continue.”

Create your first ad group, and write your first ad. Use your keywords in your headline when you can. You’re limited to 25 characters here, so for some search terms, you’ll need to use abbreviations or shorter synonyms.

The second and third lines allow for 35 characters of text each. Better if you describe a benefit on the second line, and feature or offer on the third line. Its will be more attractive.

Even though Google places the field for your display URL below your main ad copy. When your ad displays on the search results page, its URL will actually show up right below your headline.

Paste your keywords into the keyword field in your account (we don`t need a thousand of them, better to start from tiny handful). Paste in your keywords. Add plus signs (+), brackets ([ ]), and quotes (“ “) to see precisely how many searches of each type you’ll get.

Set your maximum cost-per-click. Set your maximum price-per-click now (called your “default bid”), but you shold undertand that every keyword is have many meanings for a different market, your attention should be on major keywords. Google will let you set individual bids for each keyword later. With little budget better to bid on low-cost keywords so that your ad can be seen by as many people as possible. Also with limited budget better to use adword half of the day, not 24 hours.