You Don't Need a Ton of Money to Start Your Own Business

In 2015, I read a book that completely changed the direction of my life. It's called The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau. Following the $100 Startup business model is such a fantastic way to get a business going if you've got an itch to become an entrepreneur and work for yourself.

This book gave me hope. I had wanted to be an entrepreneur ever since I was a child, but I felt like there were too many barriers to starting my own business. I thought, first of all, that I needed some fantastic, Shark-Tank-worthy idea that no one else in the entire world had ever had before so I could patent it.

Second, I needed a ton of money—money to pay someone to build a prototype for me, a lawyer to patent my idea, a factory to build 30,000 units ready to sell. Money for commercials and marketing and a website. I really thought you had to have tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, of dollars or you shouldn't even try to be an entrepreneur.

I had neither a brilliant idea nor thousands of dollars. I had some gardening experience and a refund check for $450. And that's what I used to start my own garden consulting business.

The $100 Startup

In this book, Guillebeau identifies 1,500 individuals who have built businesses that earn $50,000 or more from a modest investment, and in most cases, they started with about a hundred bucks. He focuses on the 50 most intriguing cases and shows that they had no special skills but discovered aspects of their personal passions that could be monetized. These particular entrepreneurs were able to restructure their lives in ways that gave them freedom and fulfillment.

He distills important lessons from those who've learned how to turn their passion into a gateway to self-fulfillment. He says that the $100 Startup is all about finding the intersection between your expertise—even if you don't consider it such, that's key—and what other people will pay for.

You don't need an MBA, you don't need a business plan, you don't even need employees. All you need is a product or a service that springs from what you love to do anyway and that people are willing to pay for. If you want more details, you should definitely check out this book.

My Key Takeaway from The $100 Startup

When I read this book, I was still homeschooling my four kids. We went to the library every week. I was known as the "two laundry baskets lady" because I'd fill up two laundry baskets with books to bring home. I could check out 50 books a week, so I'd bring them home for my kids to read, and then we'd pile them back in the baskets and bring them back to the library to get 50 more. While we were grabbing baby books and Harry Potter books for my oldest, I'd grab something for myself to engage my mind. I found The $100 Startup and devoured it.

It was full of so many aha moments for me, but the key was that you're most likely really good at something, even if you're not confident that you are. And that something is a skill others are willing to pay for. In other words, you yourself are the commodity. If you build a business around this idea, you can start with very little cash. You don't need a little trinket to develop and patent and sell and ship. The product is inside you, and it's based on your personal experiences and lessons learned.

Your knowledge is a product in itself.

This takeaway became a key part of my journey to starting a garden consulting business. Like I said, I had $450—this was a refund check from a preschool I'd considered sending my daughter to. I had no loans, no extra money from any outside sources, period. And honestly, I probably could have started with only $100. Here's how that worked out.

How I Started My Business with $450

To open a business bank account, you only need $25 to $100. I opened my business bank account right from the beginning with the $450, and then I got a business credit card and debit card. And then I was off to the races.

Here's how my business model worked: I would first charge someone for a garden consultation. These consultations involved me, the client, and my notebook. I drove myself in my minivan and sometimes brought homegrown lettuce for them to taste. So the only cost for the consultation was gas money.

I had plenty of time in the mornings because my kids were at school. I'd drive to the client's house, spend an hour with them, and then go home. They'd pay me $25 in the beginning, then $50, and eventually $100 for my time. The margin here is amazing. Even when I was only charging $25, I got to keep almost the entire price for that one hour. Money for gas and maybe a couple printouts to give to clients was the only thing coming out of my business bank account.

After the consult, some clients would want my help buying products for their new garden space or even setting up their gardens. I would purchase the products with my business account, which meant I paid the wholesale price, and then the client would pay me the retail price, plus maybe a bit more of a markup. Even if I only had $450 in the bank, I could purchase a couple hundred dollar's worth of products for the client and then not owe anything on the card for 30 days. By then, the clients would have paid me back for the products, plus my service fee. I could pay the credit card bill and put every remaining penny back into my bank account. If you do this over and over again, that bank account is going to grow real fast.

So I would do a consult, deposit the consultation fee into the bank account, order the materials, pull from the credit card, and then deliver the materials and get the garden set up for the client. Once they paid me again, I'd pay off the credit card and just keep going, client after client. I became proof that you could start a business with very little in the bank.

What's Your $100 Startup Idea?

I remember remarking to a friend after I found out about a mom coming up with the idea to put shoe charms in Crocs and making millions from her kitchen that all the good ideas were already taken. I look back on that moment now and think, Nicole, you had no idea what was sitting inside of you. All the good ideas are not taken because you have ideas inside of you that no one else has. You are someone that other people would pay to get help from.

The $100 Startup model is a real thing. I'm living testimony of it, and I'm so thankful to Chris for writing that book. I hope this gives you an idea of how you could have your own $100 Startup, too. You do not have to have some genius, 100-percent-original idea. You do not have to have hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to get it made and shipped and sold.

You can start right away as a coach or a consultant. You can let yourself be the product. You make a huge margin on your time, and then you can sell products that you recommend with a little bit of a profit margin. Watch your business bank account grow from $100 to $1,000s in the weeks and years to come.

It's a business model that's replicable, and it's something that almost all of us can do.

If you're a gardener and you're interested in becoming a garden consultant, I would love to help you do it every step of the way. We have a certification program inside of Gardenary, and we offer free kickstarts throughout the year to introduce you to the details of the garden industry. These events are a great way to see if this industry is a good fit for you.

I am so thankful that entrepreneurship isn't something reserved for people with crazy ideas and tons of money. It really is something all of us can give a try, and I hope the fact that I gave it a try encourages you to do it, too!