The reality is, you don’t need much. To really start a business you need:
- Be doing something
- Telling people what you are doing
- Tell people that you can help them
You don’t really need any technology for all of those things, and that makes sense because people have been starting businesses long before technology came around.
Even back in the old bater time thousands of years ago we got things like “Hey, I have some chickens that make eggs that I am trading. Do you have anything you would like to trade for eggs?” Why does it need to be more difficult than that?
Actually, it doesn’t. Technology is used to improve the experience but sometimes we use it to distract us from doing what is really important.
A website can help you tell your story in a more simple and repeatable fashion. You don’t have to tell it every time, you can point people to your story and they can learn from themselves.
Social media is great at helping let people know what you are doing, but is designed to distract you from your mission and if you aren’t careful, you can start consuming other’s messages instead of sharing your own.
Email, and email automation, are incredible tools but can easily become other people’s todo list that you are working on all day.
If I were starting a business, I would start with a branded email (gmail works fine if you need to at the start but ideally I would get a domain and use myname@domain.com). Then I would put a website at that domain with just a couple of pages. One, talking about what I am selling (the home page), one a contact page with a form for people to fill out, and the 3rd page would be an about page, telling my story and creating an opportunity to connect with my potential customers on a deeper level.
That is it.
A website and an email.
A way to tell people what you are selling and a way for them to say “yes, I want you to help me”.
The only other thing you might want is a way to take their money if you aren’t meeting in person. For this I’d recommend Stripe.
Once you’ve got some sales under your belt, then you can get a logo, better website design, sales and CRM tools and ways to spend less on Credit Card processing fees, etc.
If you are interested in getting some hand holding getting started, sign up for a free strategy call so I can help you get going.
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