Many people would like to be in business today but for some inhibiting factors.These limiting factors could be not having ideas as to:
*what type of business to go into,
*how to go about establishing the chosen business,
*how to put the structures on the ground for a smooth take-off,
*not having the finance to make it all happen,
*and so many peculiar reasons.

SPOTTING BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES

Well if you have not the idea of the type of creative business to go into, these are tips to help you.
These include:
*keeping your "seers" and "hearers" wide open for such opportunities,
*employing your power of observation and imagination,
*asking questions and learning from the right sources and experts,
*going out on your own to obtain and confirm bits of information even after you have contracted jobs to consultants,
*networking with people in similar business,
*acquiring as much information as possible concerning the business you want to go into through journals, books, libraries, friends etc..
As to how one can put the right structures on the ground and raise the needed funds, these one can do by learning from others who did it before you and succeeded in it all.

RAISING FUNDS THE PROBLEM?

It is believed that any one going into business has a fairly, good idea about what he wants and where he is going.Few, however, don't.Apparently, the greatest problem new business starters face is raising funds.And as a bootstrapper (one building his business from the scratch without funds), one has to face the stark realities of life.He needs to rent an office or shop, put in telephone(s), furniture/fixtures, equipment and employee(s).To beat his constraint, the bootstrapper has to be creative, crafty, ingenious to survive.

FINANCING

As we all know, most business start-up owners have not the money required to take off successfully.They are not the bankable lot.Without fat bank accounts, connection in high places and relevant collateral bankers scarcely cast more than a fleeting glance at them or their projects.So to beat the odds and survive I will suggest that such people should go bootstrapping when every other funds source fails.The only apparent disadvantage is the likelihood of having a very long road to travel before getting to your destination depending, among other circumstances, on your experience.

In bootstrapping no two experiences are identical but many bootstrapping veterans employed similar tools and techniques that helped them weather the storm and ordeal to success.In order to educate ourselves we shall look at how some of these veterans did it all and succeeded.

Take for instance a chemical engineer who financed his consulting firm by selling clover seed, cutting and selling beef and from money made by the wife who converted bolts of cloth into Americana crafts.Through all these the couple made 3,000 US dollars which "put bread on their table through out their start up phase".

Two friends who went into computer sales had neither cash nor farm nor much less.One had 100 dollars advance on his credit card and the other 200 dollars.With the sum they rented an 8-by-10 foot room for 150 dollars a month, borrowed a desk and phone and bought a 20 dollar signboard and pronto, they went into business.Because they could not do business-to-business work, as they could not float terms for their customers, it took them not less than five years to establish a banking relationship.

In order to ensure they were liquid (i.e had cash readily available) they retailed because cash was up front.They kept no stock and had to start wholesale business because of this even though the margin was small...all to get cash.Generally collecting debts from one's debtors is very important for his business.With bootstrapping he has no choice but to ensure that debts are reduced to the barest minimum.To him it is a do-or-die affair because he needs the cash to carry on.

A research consultant once told the story of how he desperately collected his fees from a client who was notorious for granting himself a 90-day credit at the expense of the Consultant.When the Consultant called and informed him that he had a toddler and had run out of pampers he kept mute.A week after and there's no payment, the Consultant sent him a diaper with a note, and his cheque was sent overnight.

CREATIVE BOOTSTRAPPER AND FINANCIAL INGENUITY

Here is the story of a visionary and highly motivated boostrapper who was determined to make it real big.Ghanshyam Patel who migrated from India to US with only 5 dollars in his pocket spent 15 years with a company and saved only 4,000 dollars, started his company with 25,000 dollars lent him by a private investor.In 8 years he built 35-million dollars long distance telephone service company ConQuest Telecommunications.

Patel started by persuading a judge to let him acquire 400 customers in Ohio and Indiana whose long distance carrier had gone bankrupt.These customers generated sales of 400.000 dollars p.a. and Patel got the lot for only $5,000.Because he needed a billing equipment, mini-computers and softwares, he approached GTE which held title to $500,000 worth of such gear from the bankrupt company and convinced them that the equipment, too sophisticated and specialized to sell on the open market would cost GTE 40,000 a year in excise duties while it gathered dust.GTE confirmed Patel's assessment with its tax ad-visors and sold him the whole thing for $4.001.The $1 was for the customized billing software.Patel then turned around and converted the equipment and software to Cash of $250,000 by selling to a friend who leased it back to him in exchange for depreciation and some ConQuest shares.

Not done yet, Patel needed a telephone switching system.He knew of a bankrupt telecoms company that had the type he needed.A new one went for $3million but he picked this up for $500,000 upfront, he negotiated a 5 year financing term with a moratorium (no payment) for one year.Now completely equipped, Patel was ready to explode.He found a buy-or-lease space which allowed him a 15 month grace (no payment for the) period if he 'd sign a 5 year lease.He signed and not long after the take-off Patel and his company; ConQuest, conquered the telecommunications industry amassing 30,000 pay phones and 200 employees.He has international network and provides operator-assisted long-distance services for some 150,000 hospitality rooms in hotels.

CREDIT CARDS

The use of credit cards to raise money especially for a start-up is expensive but boostrappers have no choice.When Bill Dayton, Phil Cooper and Larry Lee foresaw in 1988 the boom in audiovisual shows for conventions, share holder meetings and the like, they used the credit card; each could boast of only $1000.However they raised $500,000 in credit lines, paid them off quickly as their customers made deposits (to avoid interest charges building up) and then re-used them.By 1995, their credit card baby, Encore Productions, was a $16 million company.

BUSINESS LOCATION

Your business location plays a very important role in marketing your company, its services and products and yourself.And as a bootstrapper you need a launching pad of a location you can call your own.In-fact, most times a bootstrapper's business starts right from his bedroom.The reason is simple...poor cash flow situation.I know a bootstrapper, when he started his audit and accountancy practice in the mid-eighties his rooms served as office... until three prospective clients who could not locate his office gave their jobs to others who were better located.Irked by this loss, he quickly re-located by borrowing $1000 to pay one-year's rent for office accommodation.So you see what a good location for your business can do to that business.It was after this loss that this man understood the international corporate policy of the audit firms.The audit firms never compromises when it comes to choosing a location for its offices.

To a bootstrapper who is "office challenged" i.e lacks decent space that's in tandem with the type of big company image that he's trying to project.Hear how a smart bootstrapper who did courier service for one of the very big American companies beat the office strap.The representatives of the big company were to visit the bootstrapper's office between 2 and 3pm.He befriended the front-office receptionist and asked for her help.His small office was leased behind that of a big company for which the receptionist worked.When the representatives came, the receptionist, acting as if the bootstrapper owned the whole space, skillfully conducted them to his office.At the same time, the bootstrapper had arranged with some of his friends to call him during the 2 2-3pm interval when the big prospects would be around his office.The phones rang continuously while those prospects were there.And each time the bootstrapper responded to the call, he'd act as if the caller was a very big customer of his. these tricks worked and he had his first big breakthrough.To, his company is a multi-million dollar business, thanks to his donning his thinking cap and co-operative friends.

STAFFING

As an individual there is so much you can do just alone.A friend may help occasionally with phones, or typing, dropping mails or messages here and there etc.If a bootstrapper can hardly pay his salary regularly how can he afford a regular employee? Maybe you will learn some things from the experience of these street smarts.When Alex and Ken started their company that markets specialty petroleum products, they didn't do so with millions in their bank account.On the other hand they had nothing, absolutely! And so they decided to put the sales people in business for themselves, established the base prices by adding overhead to the product prices and then shared profits with their sales people.That way both parties made it big and were happy.

Another bootstrapper who left the service of a big oil company to hit the bootstrapping trail without any money in his pocket told his sales people that he coun't wait more than a couple of months for them to break even (i.e be in a position of no profit or loss.So what he did was to hire them at low wages, and if they did well, they would get bonuses and commissions.Challenged by this situation, the sales people did everything...they made sales, built machines, shipped them; helped with book keeping...some even got raises of 20% a year while others doubled their starting incomes.

Dennis was a bootstrapper extraordinary.From what he had read in management books and business magazines he concluded that most full-time employees generally work only five hours a day and go off the other three.And so when he started his specialty business of card design and manufacturing he made do with part-timers WHO worked shifts using a single set of equipment.Four yours later his business jumped to $700,000.

COMMUNICATIONS

Communications are very important for the modern business.The bootstrapper needs telephone(s), e-mail, fax, the Internet etc. not only to build the image of his company with the outside world but also to transact his business promptly profitably and expand its frontiers.However if as a bootstrapper you do not own your own telephones you can use a friend's to receive calls.Under an arrangement with the receptionist when the calls come in, he/she could tell the caller to call back as the bootstrapper wasn't around.When the call is repeated and the bootstrapper is still not around, the caller can then be asked politely to leave a message for the bootstrapper.Most callers will willingly or out of frustration leave their messages.At the end of the day, the bootstrapper collects the messages and then acts on them.This he continues to do until he is able to have his own telephone.

Having an e-mail address is now very easy and cheap.So the bootstrapper should exploit this facility to his utmost advantage.Some bootstrapper while answering phone calls use the royal 'we' instead of 'I' even when they are sole.This conveys the air of largeness, importance and seriousness.Some others take liberties.One would put a caller on hold, wait a few seconds and "send" him from department to department by changing the bootstrapper's voice with each "transfer"

When a bootstrapper started his company with only $200, he rented a closet for his answering machine so that he would have a phone number with a scale dialing exchange.Another bootstrapper installed a second phone line which he made sure he answered professionally.A bootstrapper's loyalty is to cash flow and the long-distance wars provide some relief for a company.This company's officials switch carriers many times and go with the one that has the best deal at the time.

COST REDUCTION

As a bootstrapper that's strapped for cash every dollar you spend should be done judiciously and should go a long way towards the profitability of your business.Instead of contracting someone to buy you raw materials or goods for your business, you should go and do so yourself.This way you save some money you would otherwise have thrown away enriching somebody else.If you want to have banners (for training made for you), as four or five artists to submit their quotations after you have given them specifications as to what you want.Pick the best by looking at such factors as price, past experience, the contents of their bids with due regard to your instructions, commitment to contract (ie.ability to deliver the right quality job at the agreed time and price), the carriage/comportment of the bidders during your discussions etc.by going this whole hog you will discover that not only will you get a competitive bid and choice, you will also likely have the best and save yourself a lot of headache and money.

As a starter that is strapped for cash, you can make it real big by employing some, all or even more than the above techniques and tools employed by others in the past to bootstrap their businesses to success starting from the bottom up. Such feats have been performed and can still be replicated.

So what are you waiting for?
Are you a starter but strapped for cash?
In this write up, you have been given so many options to chose.
It is now in your hands to bootstrap yourself into firm and stardom!