How to Start a Tech Company With Less Than $100
Part 1: Establishing Your Digital Presence
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It used to be that if you wanted to start a high-tech, high-growth company with no money, you needed to line up millions of dollars in venture capital. Let’s be honest. That’s a scary proposition that most entrepreneurs don’t even have the connections to make happen.
This leads to a lot of otherwise smart people sinking what money they do have into a bottomless pit of incompetent technical talent and Ponzi-style marketing schemes.
But if you ask me why only one out of every 10-ish VC-funded high-tech, high-growth startups make it, I’ll tell you that the dirty secret is that no one knows if a high-tech, high-growth startup is going to be successful until it’s successful.
Money gets raised, money gets lit on fire, and then nine times out of ten everyone moves on and never speaks of the venture again. Or to the founders.
Look. There’s another way. It’s never been easier to rely on no-code, low-code, open-source, third-party tech to build a technical product from the ground up, take it to market, and start generating revenue and proving viability. And it’s only getting cheaper.
VC Strategy But With My Own Money
Along with working with and advising dozens of innovative VC-funded high-tech, high-growth startups, I’ve been building and running my own tech startups for 25 years. Out of my own pocket.
And I’m talking Old Navy pockets, or maybe Banana Republic pockets in a good month. Certainly not Brooks Brothers pockets or 7 For All Mankind pockets (I have a friend who is into those, I had to ask him what they were called again).
Three years ago, I started another in a series of fully functional digital companies for less than $100. Within six months, that company was scalable and profitable at less than $100 in monthly spend. Six months after that, I had generated over $20,000 in revenue at 80% margin.
Now, these numbers aren’t likely to blow you away, but they’re real. And that’s my point. I’m using the same strategies I use when I’m working with a multi-million-dollar funded company, but I’m thinking big, and acting small — until…
