How to Start Your Online Business for Free

Before spending recklessly, test an online business idea with $0

In a recent conversation about a friend’s potential online business, they discussed all of the software they needed to buy to get started. My friend had started multiple businesses before, spending (read: wasting) hundreds to thousands of dollars only to decide that the business was not viable.

Instead of spending all the money upfront, you can test your business idea for free.

Testing a Business Idea

If you’re to succeed in your online business, your idea needs to be viable for making money. Even more important, you need to enjoy working in your business. When both of these criteria are met, your business can thrive.

The first step to finding if your business is viable is to determine if you can create an audience for your business. Else, who are you going to sell to? An excellent method to test the viability of your business is by determining if you can build an email list.

Additionally, you need to know whether you are going to enjoy your business. The best way to test whether you enjoy your idea is to create content around your idea. Do you enjoy talking about your business niche? Will you enjoy marketing your business?

Build an email list for free

Building an email list is going to be essential to determining the viability of your products. You can roughly determine the amount of money you will make by selling something based on the size of your email list. If you cannot find people to join your email list, it will be challenging to make money from your business.

Best of all, you can build an email list for free.

How to build your email list?

The best way to build your email list is to create a lead magnet. A lead magnet is simply something you give away for free to gain someone’s email address. Whether you are selling digital or physical products, you can create a simple guide or checklist that would help your ideal audience.

Successful lead magnets include checklists and jumpstart guides. You can create a simple guide using google docs. For example, my lead magnet is a content planning worksheet that helps people create 52 content ideas to build their audience.

The first step is to build your lead magnet. Then you can use a simple form to have people opt-in to receive the form. These people will be added to your email list to help you build your business.

How to do it for free?

If you are going to build an email list, you will need an email service provider. You can use ConvertKit for free up to 1000 subscribers. If you have generated 1000 email subscribers, then you have validated the potential success of your business idea.

There are restrictions on the free plan. The most substantial one is the inability to have automated sequences. However, automated sequences are primarily helpful when you already have products that you are ready to pitch to your audience. When you are just starting, you will likely not have products to pitch. Therefore, automated sequences are not important for building the email list itself.

However, on the free plan, you can still send email broadcasts. You will want to send weekly email broadcasts to your list to keep in their mind while you build your products and test your business idea.

How have I done it?

I have helped to start two different companies. One was my own company aiming to help science graduate students with research be more successful in graduate school. I created my first lead magnet on ConvertKit, which was a productivity workbook for graduate students. I pitched my lead magnet in Facebook groups that were aimed at graduate students and within days had my first 30 email opt-ins. At the time, I was already coaching and thought I was ready to build a course. So I decided to switch my email list onto a paid platform. Now I realize that I should have waited longer and talked about this experience in a story about my failed course launch. My recommendation is that 500–1000 email subscribers show that your idea can be successful.

The second company that I helped start was for a friend, focused on helping aspiring managers land their first management job. While I first suggested going with free options, my friend was ready to jump in and start building a course, despite having no audience. After three months of paying $200/mo., she had gained 7 subscribers.

No matter how hard we tried, we could not find people who were interested in her business. We have since closed the business down and are testing a different business idea.

Create content for free

Once you have a way to capture emails, you need to produce content to introduce people to your lead magnet. There are three main types of content: written, audio, and video. These content types generally translate into blogs, podcasts, and YouTube channels, respectively.

When you start your business, there is a way to create each of these content types for free.

How to create content?

The first step to creating content is deciding which format is best for you. Think about what format you enjoy the most. Do you like to write or make videos?

Once you decide on the content you would like to produce, start developing content ideas that your ideal audience would be searching for or benefit from. Then, create the content, whether it is writing or filming a video or recording audio. Once the content is created, you need to edit the content and then publish it on the internet.

Make sure that you mention your lead magnet in your content!

How to do it for free?

If you are thinking of becoming a blogger, you may have seen all of the videos telling you not to start with a free WordPress or Squarespace blog. I agree with this advice. However, there is still a way to produce all of this content for free.

Let’s start with YouTube videos. If you do not know, it is free to make a YouTube account and upload as many videos as you would like. However, many people believe that you need to invest in a camera or other gear before creating YouTube videos. In reality, when you are starting, you can use your phone’s camera. To prove this, here is Shelby Church’s YouTube video that is filmed entirely on a phone camera.

Next, for podcasts, there are a couple of options to produce your podcast for free. The option I have previously used is anchor.fm. Using anchor, you can upload your podcast episode, and then it will be distributed to podcast platforms like Spotify. Another option is to include the video of you filming your podcast and upload the video to a YouTube channel.

Finally, for blogs, there is a way to start your blogs for free initially. Put your posts on Medium. Medium can host your blog posts and help you distribute them. If you become serious about your business, then I would recommend buying your domain and creating a separate site. However, when you are starting, Medium can be a great platform to test your business idea.

With all of these platforms, there are methods for you to earn money. While your YouTube channel needs to meet certain criteria, you can earn money from advertising. On Medium, you can sign up for the partner program and earn money from member reads.

You can produce content for free, use the content to direct people to your email list and even start to build up some cash flow.

How have I done it?

When I started my business, I created a YouTube channel. I did not pay to have my own website yet. I directed people from my YouTube channel to get my productivity workbook on ConvertKit. It took me several months to figure out what type of content worked best with my audience, which led me to specifically focusing on research strategies. While I first enjoyed creating content for my YouTube channel, I started writing posts on Medium and found that I enjoyed writing much more than making YouTube videos. When I reached 500 email subscribers, I set up my blog and have thoroughly enjoyed creating content. From my own enjoyment and the size of my email list, I believe that testing my business idea was successful.

On the other hand, for my friend’s business, we also started her content on YouTube. They were unable to make content consistently for the business and only put out 5 videos in total. They kept discussing how they just didn’t like making these videos. Then, we decided to switch to creating content on Medium instead. They never wrote a blog post. Why? Because they didn’t enjoy talking about the subject, they were just trying to find a business idea that worked. With the combination of a low email subscriber count and them not enjoying the work, we decided to count the business out and close it down. With the new business, we are setting up primarily on ConvertKit and YouTube, lowering the initial investment in the business.

Start your business for free

When you are excited to start your business, it can be easy to convince yourself that it is good to spend heavily from the get-go. Instead, spend a month or two building an email list and producing content to attract your ideal audience.

• Build your email list on ConvertKit for free to start. The best way to build your email list is to provide a lead magnet in exchange for their email.
• Guide people to your lead magnet by creating free content.

Once you have tested the viability of your business and your interest level, you can then consider investing and scaling your business.