To build your business on a budget you severely limit yourself. However, if you can pull it off successfully you may have a cash cow on your hands. If you avoid going into debt or selling shares you could soon find yourself with more money than you know what to do with.

This method of business growth is known as "bootstrapping". You can decide bootstrapping is right for you for any of the following reasons...

1) you product doesn't require a large amount of funding for prototypes or production

2) banks won't consider you for a loan because of the industry you are trying to get into or because you have credit problems

3) the idea of selling shares may seem ludicrous to you if you believe that they won't be valued at a fair price.

So what are your options? Well you will need to find other sources of business funding. The all time best source of business funding is revenue. Most successful bootstrapped companies started out building a small scale of their business model, selling a few products and as the money came in they would reinvest their companies income back into the business.

Initially, you may not be able to have fancy offices or pay yourself very much but using the bootstrapping technique often means that the business person will fight with everything in the body to get their business off the ground. Often, the opposite is the case with entrepreneurs who get equity investment. Because they have more money to start up, they can afford to waste a little bit. they may overpay their staff or themselves, buy unnecessary furniture and so on. This bloated infrastructure could lead to the business downfall.

While there is not one "best way" to start up a business, starting up on a shoestring budget by bootstrapping is something you could consider if it is a possibility to you.

To learn more about bootstrapping and other forms of business funding look at the Ad|Venture venture capital e-toolkit. this toolkit will allow you to walk through the business funding process in a step by step process. To learn more about this program click on the link below.

Business Bootstrapping: Growing your business on a budget