How To Start an Online Business With $0 Expenses
Shiny-Object Syndrome is a b**ch.
You don't need any of these fancy things. I'll show you how to start a business for free.
You know this old trope, “I wanna get the $99 / month plan of this online tool, it’ll make my business run much better.”
No, it won’t.
Never did for me.
I’ve been there, my friend.
I bought all the things.
I’ve spent $1,000 on the Mighty Networks annual plan while making $50 / month from my group there.
I have told people to get ConvertKit premium because you can build fancy automations to guide your subscribers through email sequences (and you’ve probably been on some of those).
Now I realize.
You need none of that.
Especially not, when you’re just starting out.
The tough reality is this, all these paid plans do only one thing: convenience.
And people pay top dollar for convenience, don’t get me wrong.
If you want to build a SaaS product, aim for convenience.
However, as you are starting out, what you really only need are platforms for distribution. All of which are free:
- Social Media: Twitter.com, free
- Email: Beehiiv.com, free
- Video hosting: Youtube.com, free (make them unlisted)
- Business OS: Notion.so, free
- Twitter scheduling: Hypefury.com, free
- Payment: Gumroad.com, free
Stop right there.
That’s all you need.
Oh, you’re not convinced?
Go ahead:
- Video Editing: Davinci Resolve, free (actually better than Premiere Pro IMO)
- Graphic design: Canva.com, free or photopea.com, free
- Webhosting/Files: mega.nz (20gb free) or Gdrive (15gb free)
- SEO: ahrefs.com has free insight on your own website
- Data and spreadsheets: Gdrive sheets
I can keep going, but you get the picture.
Granted, some alternatives suck a bit. Canva or other Photoshop clones are not as good as the original. But this is really only in the details.
If you start out, you don’t need those special features.
The reason you think you need all these paid plans is the same reason I thought I needed it:
You don’t trust your own content, skill, and wisdom.
You think you need to skip steps and build fancy things while you haven’t even evaluated if people like your content enough.
You think you need to be super-fancy because you see other people’s Youtube videos or Tweets and they have all that cool stuff.
Yes, but they all started small.
Just writing on Twitter about whatever came to mind.
Once they struck a chord with people, they doubled down on that.
This is what you need to do.
Step by Step Setting it up
You have nothing going, but you have an idea of what you want to do?
Get a Twitter account
Check out my Twitter and mimic the profile structure. Good pic, clean banner, bio that tells how the follower gets VALUE. Pinned tweet with what you are about (there’s more to it but it’s enough to start)
Tweet 3-5x a day about your main topic
Reply to big accounts 30x a day (steal their following by getting impressions there)
One thread a week where you dive a little deeper
Use Hypefury to schedule and automate that (on the free plan you can schedule 2 days in advance, but that’s all you need for now)
Get a Beehiiv account
Set up a simple sign-up for your newsletter
It automatically creates SEO-optimized posts on a dedicated website, so you don't even need a website
Emails are automatically turned into “posts”
Check back with Twitter analytics (or blackmagic.so) which tweets did well, double down on those. Write an email on such a topic and go deeper
Post the link to your sign-up under each good-performing tweet and in your Twitter bio
Make a Notion.so workspace and get my EZ Life Planner (I’ll soon release my entire Content Engine OS on which I run my business)
Track your income and expenses on dedicated notion pages (they have good templates)
Some topics struck a chord with people? Emails working well?
Build a course on Notion. Write or record and upload to youtube, paste the links in Notion.
In the top right corner, you can click “share” and share a page publicly.
Put that link on Gumroad in your Content and sell the product in your newsletter
Boom.
Making money with $0 spent (think of taxes tho…)
Now, of course, this is an abstract version of it. Just the overview.
This is the basic understanding of how it is possible these days. It's never been simpler.
Hell, I even downgraded my paid things and moved from Convertkit ($290/year) to the free plan on Beehiiv.
Because I like my business lean and clean!
Let me know if you have questions!
Also, if you gained value from this, please give the Twitter thread that sparked it some love here: https://twitter.com/IAmAlexGraves/status/1664303092018434050
Thank you!
🔥 Roast My Landing Page
This is pretty much the most no BS, to the point way of doing Twitter I've read. (After fumbling around myself with it the past 6 months.)
And btw, the free graphic design tool is photopea.com not "photoplea".
Thank you! Glad people like it!
And, yes, you are right! I corrected it!
Very helpful read Alexander! 🙌
It's true that people spend loads of money just for convenience, which may be fruitful if you have a big business. But just for starting out, aim for spending the least if not zero.
Like reference, for my productized design agency Strokes Studio, I'm on the free tiers of almost every tool, except the web hosting (Framer).
I would like to add one thing tho, if a tool really helps in achieving growth from point A → B, then don't cheap out on it, considering you're already making a good amount of money from your product.
Yes, totally. For example beehiiv's paid plans are awesome for scaling your business/letter.
But at first, it's about getting it going :)
One of the best article I read so far, congrats
And yes, Shiny-Object Syndrome is a b**ch :)
Yes, I am very guilty of falling for it in the past ;)
Love this, it makes so much sense. It's been a real struggle from our end growing our followers on Twitter, as well as getting impressions, and we have seen replying to big accounts work!
Absolutely. Just make sure they are in your niche. You wanna get the followers that would also love your content!
Greats tips! I'm starting in the same way you wrote in this post! Thanks!
Awesome! Just keep pushing. As with any business: For a while nothing happens, then everything happens all at once.
Brilliant article.
Great Insights and loved your way of conveying things to audience!
This is a very good reminder that starting off with free services isn't necessarily a hindrance. In fact, it could lead to potentially getting more creative just because we want to save costs. Thanks for the post!
There's also ExtensionPay which lets you take payments in browser extensions with almost no work. I made ExtensionPay, so excuse the self-promotion, but I also use it myself to make extensions. It only takes a small fee from your sales (much smaller than gumroad) and it's free to use otherwise so it's pretty budget-friendly.
Hey Glench,
Would it be possible for you to support Paddle? Stripe isn't supported where I'm from
Right but I think anyone can afford 100$ to get a hosting or try vulture or free digital ocean credits.
But why? To post into the void? Nobody reads your blog in the beginning. Test the market first, then build on the feedback. Much faster approach IMO.
Or to fit your message, you can of course, start with the $100 plan for beehiiv and get the paid features like boosts. That definitely helps!
Hey! These are really valuable insights and great tips about how to start an online business with zero expenses. It provides much confidence to new business entrepreneurs to start and invest in online business as well.
How long does it take to write 30 reply tweets every day?
30mins to 1 hour.
Make lists of the accounts you want to interact with on Twitter.
Go through the list 1:1 and ADD VALUE to their tweet. You wanna get a RT or comment out of them which is done by adding value.
Another method is to turn on notifications for bigger accounts on your phone, so you're one of the first on their tweet.
But this gets a bit annoying I must admit :D
Reality check ✅
Been there, done that. Just like you said, "If I had this software I would accomplish this and that and drive the business up".
Just simply not true.
Shiny-Object Syndrome is real and a b**ch.
Starting an online business with zero expenses is challenging, but it's not impossible. Here are some steps you can take to begin an online business with minimal or no financial investment, Remember, starting a business with zero expenses requires dedication, resourcefulness, and creativity. While you may not have upfront financial costs, be prepared to invest your time, effort, and skills into building and growing your online business.
I don't like Hypefury's permission settings on Twitter - I feel like they impede my privacy, do you have any other alternatives?
There is Tweethunter, but it's not free.
Socialbee.
Any other I didn't test myself.
Don't use gumroad!
What's wrong with Gumroad?
one chargeback and all sales gone
I don't understand. I made over $30k so far on Gumroad. What happened to you?