Step One: Get Off Your YOU KNOW WHAT!

Word Count: about 550
Read Time: about 3 minutes or less

Greetings Steppers! Well, It’s official. I’m re-launching this site/blog/thingie I started over a year ago, to let the world know how to start a business on a shoestring. The site ITSELF is on a shoestring, so I’m practicing what I preach

If you haven’t had a chance to yet, check out this quick video that’ll walk you through the Shoestring101 Story and what to expect from this site.

So why build a business with only a small investment? Well, if you’re RIGHT about your business idea being a hit, you can make a bundle without investing a bundle. If you’re WRONG (like I have been sometimes), you lose very little or nothing.

Here’s a partial list of businesses I’ve started with zero or almost zero capital:

• A sticks-and-bricks ‘real’ business: Martial Arts Studio (www.freedomschool.com).
• A book that teaches how to invest in the stock market without getting hurt (www.radioactivetrading.com)
• A window cleaning company.
• A coaching/training service.
• A lawn care company.
• A mobile screen repair service.
• A real estate investment company.
• Two multi-level marketing opportunities.

Some of these businesses are still in existence, and some I’ve back-burnered. This may be because they are seasonal… or they just plain FAILED…  so I don’t pay them very much attention anymore. But the key point I’m driving home is this: each of the above businesses was begun with very little capital.

That way I didn’t get hurt if it did fail… and had the opportunity to TRY AGAIN without losing anything but the time that was on my hands anyway.

That’s backwards from the way a lot of folks start a business. Most folks think that you have to HAVE money to MAKE money. Hogwash. You just need to follow the Steps.

Two of the above businesses I have built to a five-figure per month level, starting with NOTHING. That’s why I call this site Shoestring101, and the content of the site I call Five Steps to Five Figures.

Here’s a challenge that I’ll be taking on, publicly: My son turns fourteen in April. That’s not far off.  Now, the Talmud says that a father that doesn’t teach his son a trade, teaches him to steal. Okay, so after fourteen years of giving him fish… I’m going to TEACH him to fish.

We’ll go into a community where I do not already have a business presence… and follow the Steps starting on April 7, 2012. I’ll keep you “posted” every step of the way as we build a respectable income starting with no more than twenty bucks. I expect to profit at least $500 by May 7, 2012 and grow every month from there. Not bad for a teenager. Hey, I’ll be doing it WITH him but not doing it FOR him. And in the process, we’ll prove the Five Steps, real time, while everyone watches.

Hey, this site itself is following the Five Shoestring Steps. I’m not charging for any info that I post here, but I recognize that by giving away this content free and by interacting (by comments) with other “Steppers”, I may just end up writing another book. We’ll see.

In any case, I want to share with the world my Five Steps to Five Figures and hopefully a few of you will decide to give the finger to the “Recession”. (Why ANYone would want to participate in a recession is beyond me)  😉

All righty then, Steppers! Got comments? Questions? Lay ‘em on me… and thanks for participating!

Keep Stepping,

Kurt