This story appears in the
April 2004 issue of
Entrepreneur.
Subscribe »
Every startup entrepreneur wants to know how to spend as little
as possible while building his or her business. We asked David
Caplan, author of How to Start a Business for Free: The Ultimate
Guide to Building a Money-Making Something From Nothing
(Silver Lake Publishing), for a few tips.
What kinds of things
do entrepreneurs often overspend on or misuse their resources
for?
David Caplan:
Being [overly] optimistic on what you think your profits are going
to be and spending too much on rent, equipment and long-term
contracts. You have to pretend you won't make a profit for two
years.
It seems that a lot
of free services have hidden costs, especially on the Internet-like
pop-up ads or spam. How can a startup find the best and most
reputable free services?
Caplan: If I
want to find someone to work on Web sites, I would [search for]
"built Internet sites and ratings"; and there are sites
that will rate different services. CNET.com will rate software, and
it's a free service. It's a great site to find free
software. Now, not everything is absolutely free, but you can find
out what sites are the least expensive and the [ones] rated very
highly.
You conclude your book with the concept of "free
mentality." Please describe what that is.
Caplan: We
recommend spending very little, starting small, seeing if you have
all the pieces of the pie that will make it work. You have to be
able to do all the aspects. The free mentality, it's a success
mentality: being willing, as a business owner, to do everything
from conceiving the idea to [taking] out the garbage to
[typing]-to do whatever is necessary.