Starting Your Own Business? Follow These 5 Frugal Business Tips

Bootstrapping your business is no joke. It takes enough knowledge, skills, experiences, and discipline to keep things going without shortchanging your new venture. However, you really have to maximize all the means where you can stretch your budget and save money.

You generally don’t succeed in business by wasting capital, especially when your business is absolutely dependent on the limited capital you have. And as a startup, it is really vital to practice the quintessence of frugality – as much as possible – at all times and in all aspects.

Now, if you are really serious about surviving the challenges of your chosen enterprise’s startup phase, you’ll need these simplest and most sensible pieces of advice that you can adopt and follow.

1. Make a realistic budget plan.

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From budgeting to implementation, everything must be SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound). Remember that in the early stage of your business, you are bound to make reasonable expectations when constructing a budget plan. See to it that you have answers to different core questions about income and expenses as budgeting encompasses a wider aspect of your business – more than you could ever imagine.

Another way to make this work is by collecting all your monthly income statements, balance sheets, and cash flows to make sense of your income versus expenses.Invest in an accountant to help you with this as you surely don’t want to tumble and get trapped in costly pitfalls.

2. Choose your space wisely.

Making every inch of your space count can let you save not just your money but also other resources. No doubt, you need to provide top-notch quality when it comes to the products and services you provide. However, your private work area could be a different story, especially you’re just starting to grow your business. Instead of shelling out massive amounts of capital for a posh office at a prime city location, look for an office space that is cost-efficient and functional. Don’t be tempted to rent a fancy office or buy new furniture if it’s not in your budget.

Consider ditching the large, empty spaces for something morepractical. In the early days of your business, put your money in growing your brand and not feeding your ego. Though you can take advantage of adding new stuff and some perks as you manage to generate a more stable income.

3. Keep your corporate job.

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Though it’s clear that you’re willing to take risks, perhaps quitting your 9-5 job, in your strong desire to try out your new venture, might not be the best financial move. Consider the possibility – even at a very least percentage – of being not as successful as you planned and anticipated. And if this happens, you could get into serious debts that would cause you terrible headaches, something we never wish to happen.

Working while starting to run your own business gives you a greater advantage as you have time to make a business plan, save more for your startup capital, and market your business all at the same time. Plus, you can earn a paycheck to fall back on just in case your idea seems to be not quite profitable.

4. Making smart marketing strategies goes a long way.

For your startup to gain customers, you have to make your brand known to your specific target market. People need to know it exists so a simple yet wise marketing technique can get these people talking about your brand. Since acquiring the services of most PR agencies may seem expensive and a startup business like yours could afford yet, you can opt for some fairly low-cost advertising strategies.

Find some user-friendly and inexpensive marketing tools that are designed for small business owners and newbies like you. Never underestimate the power of social media. You can set up a Facebook page, a Twitter and/or an Instagram accountto promote your business for free using social media marketing and digital advertising.

5. Check out daily deal and coupon code sites.

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Many daily deal sites (like the ones shown in the graphic photo) offer a lot of discounted products and services from different merchants. Aside from the variety of merchandise and services to choose from, you can even avail discounts for up to 90 percent. Their accessibility is never an issue as some of them even come with mobile app versions and installing them is such a great steal. Through these sites and apps, you’d never have to pay “full price” again.

With all these interesting money-saving tips for a startup business like yours, you surely can be frugal without being cheap.Keep this in mind: Being able to manage your finances is the key to running a successful business.