Is $95 enough to start a small business on the internet?

[NadirAziz]

I am planning to invest an initial amount of $95 to start a new eCommerce site/an affiliate site or small business sites. It is possible with this amount or do I need a bigger one?
what are your thoughts?

 

[Nytshade]

These days, it's not enough. With that kind of money you'll only be able to buy a domain name, 6 months hosting and 2 months autoresponder subscription.

You won't even have enough to promote your business, pay for design, buy landing page tools or giveaway/freebie design and creation tools. Things are expensive these days, back then when I started that would have been enough but in today's world unfortunately it's not.

Or you can start small with a free wordpress or blogger blog then once it starts generating a good income then you can move it to a self hosted website. At least this way you'll be able to afford an autoresponder and have some cash to market your site using cheap ads on facebook or bing.

But you'll have to rely on a lot of free tools which are mostly not good. However, it will be a good start and you'll be in a better position than those who're still thinking about starting a business. So start with free tools, that's your best option.

Then you keep saving money and once the free site starts generating an income you can grow from there.

 

[sip]

it depends on what type of business you want to runa dn how you can promote it.

If you get a wordpress site on a cheap host say $5 a month you can make an affiliate site an ecommerce site or a small business site on that in your spare time.

The trick is having a way to promote said business for next to zero cost.

You could use wordpress and free mailchimp account to ahve a basic IM business but the promotion would be 0 unless you are a super guru in the making and can get traffic for free.

But for example if you sold a hot item and made some money on each one dropshipping anc could promote through facebook or forum posts etc then perhaps you can make it work.

I started websites with less than that and made money before.

For example an ebook sell on all IM forums. point to your site for checkout get the details add to mailchimp have an upsell etc. it could work...

 

[oldnickb]

I've seen people do it with less. For example you could do review videos for affiliate products without even having a website.
If you are starting out you can use a free blog. I've seen blogger blogs that have loads of traffic. A Youtube channel costs nothing, A facebook page is free too.

Use Gimp or paint.net for your graphics, Audacity for your audios and camstudio for your videos. They are all free and almost as good as paid programs. In fact Audacity is the best for audio. Even pros use it.

You can make money using completely free resources but you will need a site and an autoresponder to build a business. You can always offer services on Fiverr to make some more cash.

Making money online is fairly easy, building a business that will provide a consistent income is far harder.

Before you start building a site do some research and make sure that you find a good niche. I know more people who have succeeded in the health and fitness markets than in any other, with relationships/ dating coming a close second.

The only thing that I would never use a free version is an autoresponder. If you are starting out it's worth using getresponse or aweber from the start. Look into clickbanking as a method of building your list quickly and cheaply. Get free plr to use as your link bait, just make sure you alter it a bit.

When you do start to make a bit of cash reinvest it until you can afford to outsource and keep scaling up.

 

[basicblogtalk]

Actually, I would answer "Yes" and "NO".

For "YES": Hosting service is now cheaper, so that you can go with some basic package which go from $3 to $5 for setting up your Wordpress business blog. Also, you can use free opt in service such as MailChimp which offered free package. I think that enough to go with your budget, and then you update it next time..

I think that I may answer you about how to do this because some of above answers were really to start.

For "NO": You have to implement you have business, and make it professional so there many stuff that will be required for improving of your business. You will waste your time with free service because you're not able to speeding your current business.

So, you have to spend more money for web template, landing page designing, and some marketing services. So, I think that $95 is less budgeting for starting small business.

But if you have just only $95, should you start it..?

Yeah...of course..!

You have to start it now..! You know..? The first time when I was starting my business, I went with free hosting such as Bloggers. I could not make money from my blog, but I could learn a lot about online business.

I start over again with less budget around $90, and then I feel like better. I could earn from my blog, even my business is slower than other. However, I always more forward..

I could earn, and I could extent more budgeting of my business..

So, you have do it today...

 

[BrentStangel]

So, you have to spend more money for web template, landing page designing, and some marketing services.

There are ways of making money online without any of this.

$95 is more then enough to get started.

 

[Content by Rhonda]

I am on someone's mailing list that uses "Listwire" for their autoresponder. I checked it out and it's free and appears to do everything my Aweber does. I have not tried it, but for getting started maybe you should check it out.

 

[professorrosado]

The Best Test If You Can Make Money Is Not To Spend It In The First Place!

We try so hard to make money that we need to realize that a product or service should sell itself. If you are starting in any business, costs can be so high, why would you also increase the difficulty of gaining back your expenses (not to mention making a profit) by choosing a product that needs so much support just to make one sale?

This type of product is best left to those with established business, traffic, and experience.

When starting a business on a budget, try to do all that you can for FREE. In fact, try to make a few sales offline first (if you have sufficient population and venue).
Additionally, starting an online business should coincide with starting an email list. Usually, getting an email list lead capture funnel will be much easier, free to low costing, and will teach you everything you need to make investing in a more rigorous presence online (websites, etc.) worth it and capable of producing a ROI.

Dominate a small funnel and grow to a larger business expertly.

 

[royals]

If your website is good and you know how to get free traffic then heck yes $95 is enough but on the other hand if you are new into IM and don't know your stuff around then I guess you will waste your time and will spend $95 with less ROI

 

[sallysaleh]

Starting a new business and you will need to pay expenses month after month. so you will have to ask two questions:

Q1-Is the $95 enough for me to start my online business?
Answer: It depends on the type of the business you are trying to do. so for example if you are trying to sell online and start an eCommerce store, $95 is not enough to take off. If you are however just want to create a niche blog and want to profit by selling digital items or by affiliate marketing then $95 is ok. But it is advisable that you minimize the cost as much as possible. so in your case you can do the following to reduce costs:

- try to find coupon $0.99 $1.99 for GoDaddy domain.
-try to find cheap hosting with the first month free. (some hosting may offer free domain as well) - try to register for one year so that you will not have to pay monthly and you can get a good deal once registering for one or two years.
-use free cms like WordPress.
-find free responsive themes.
-benefit from Fiverr for cheap SEO and backlinks.
-try to do backlinks and writing by yourself.
all of the above tips will help you run your business on the budget you have.

Q2- will I need additional money to run my business after one, two or three months?
Answer: In general yes. and most new fee will be to get quality backlinks. you can do the following tips to maintain that cost.

-save some of $95 aside to buy backlinks. let's say $30. and each month use $10 for backlinks.
-try to do the backlinks works yourself by learning and practicing. it is not too hard.
-as soon as your blog starts making money, use part of the profit to improve your business.

Thanks indeed and I wish my answer is of help to you.

 

[ypson]

Yes if you can also design, implement everything on the technical side (domains, scripts etc) and do any other tings by yourself. Then the bulk of the amount would be use for the advertising but it wont go a long way.

 

[professorrosado]

I got into an unlimited shared hosting plan for $99 one time payment and no fees for life!
So I have unlimited space for websites, unlimited add on and subdomain space for ever and no fees to worry about.

I have now reduced my IM expenses by 98% with that purchase and another. I am almost pure profit at this point.

Your little budget is best saved in order to take advantage of special "core" deals that will keep your business profitable. People lose money in IM because they do not "know" what their business is and spend essential cash on the wrong things.

The first step in knowing how to make money, is learning how not to spend it!

 

[wppluginspack]

If you have web design and SEO skills and your idea doesn't cost money in the first place (inventory), then it's possible. Marketing costs more than that, though. I like the suggestions others have given.

 

[SIG]

Are you serious about this business?
Did you make a business plan?

Answer this questions for yourself and then you'll know if $95 is enough.

But remember this: to make money you need to invest money.

 

[Harry P]

Harry P

Nice sentence...very creative!

I would keep this in my notebook :icon_mrgreen:

 

[Adam Yunker]

Hey there!

First off it's completely possible! But before you make the same mistake I did when opening up an eCommerce store let me give you some advice

When opening up a forum, eCommerce store, Blog, etc. It's important to get a following so that when you open up you have people lined up ready to hop on your website from day 1 to give it that momentum.

For this I'd suggest creating a squeeze page for your niche that promotes a free product and deliver that free product through an autoresponder right away. After that have a newsletter that goes out 2 times a week that gives them really good helpful advice that they need.

Build your list this way and once you have a consistent amount of people opening up your emails and maybe clicking on links to articles they can read (this means you have an active email list).

Then create a social media page where they can join and talk to each other. This turns them just from your subscribers to a living breathing community that communicates under your umbrella.

Once you've built up a strong list and a strong following on social media it is then time to open up your store, blog, forum, or what have you and let them know you're working on it and creating a masterpiece. If you don't have the money to build it in this step you can always go ahead and do a kickstarter or any crowdfunding campaign (kickstart, indiegogo, gofundme, etc.) and let them know about your project and let them be your backers to help get this store launched!

Then once you launch and get the money from the launch day, then you have to know what to purchase and what to do to keep them coming. For this I'd recommend hiring a professional all around marketer and give him some of the profits (if you have enough, which you should if you did this properly... The pre-launch is the longest part) and let the marketer manage that money and give him the responsibility to bring in your customers with that amount of money.'

Then I'd also consider creating some sort of rebilling option for premium members to help even out your cashflow and make it more consistent

Hope this helps

Adam

 

[gainnoo]

Unfortunately, when you calculate your startup costs and then add in the amount of money you need to cover your personal expenses during the startup phase, getting enough money to start your new business can seem like an impossible dream.

 

[TakeProfit]

It's possible to start an online business even with no any money, but it depends on what exactly you are going to do. For example, affiliate marketing does not require huge investments, but you must have an experience in this area...

 

[Broccoli]

Yes, $95 is enough to get a small business started, but you will have to be extremely dedicated.

 

[hostslim]

Yes, if you really want it Be prepared that it will take a long time to make a good amount of sales with no budget for a bit of marketing.

 

[ExpertOption]

you can start your business for free, just make social group in FB