How To Build A Successful Business With Zero Capital

“It takes money to make money” — Says the person who has a closed mind.

21 min readDec 23, 2022

Are you sick of hearing that you need capital to start a successful business?

Or are you focused on raising capital for your business?

Yeah, I was too — until I discovered this beautiful way to enter the market without paying a dime.

And in this article, I am going to reveal to you what I’ve discovered, and how anybody can start a business without any capital. Like zero. Not even $5.

No matter what you hear, you can build a thriving enterprise with nothing but an eye for opportunity, determination, and a whole lotta creativity.

It’s not hard either, it just requires one to think outside of the box and be persistent.

If you’re willing to do and be that, let’s get into it.

The Switch That Makes This Possible

Before I get into the tactical side of things, let me first say that I would be doing you a big disservice if I didn’t talk about the most important part of accomplishing this.

And that is your willingness to change your way of thinking.

For example, before I started the two businesses I run now, I was a fitness coach.

I hired a mentor for $10k to teach me how to build an online fitness business.

And I did pretty damn well for myself, collecting over a quarter of a million dollars in 18 months.

At some point, I started to see business slow down, and I struggled to pick it back up — but the problem was that I wasn’t changing anything about my approach.

I was writing content all day.
Posting 2 times a day on every social media channel
Sending 50 friend requests a day
DM’ing 100 people a day (yes, 100 people, no joke)

This was all I did.

Why?

Because I didn’t think there was another way.

I was told that in the high-ticket coaching space that this is how things were done.

I allowed my thinking to get cluttered by other people's ideas, narrow my focus, and stunt my latent creativity.

And then I discovered some guy named Jay Abraham exists.

Jay Abraham is a well-known business executive, marketing consultant, and entrepreneur.

He is known for helping businesses grow and increase profits through marketing strategies, business development, and strategic partnerships.

And one time I heard him say something that changed the way I approached business forever.

“When people get into business, they look at similar businesses and do what those people are doing. It’s way more beneficial to look at how other companies in other industries are doing business and apply it to yours.”

So, instead of doing what my mentors and everyone else told me to do, I just started looking at other businesses and how they did things.

And one day I was listening to 93 Extraordinary Referral Systems by Jay Abraham and heard this one guy say something that opened my mind to an entirely new way of getting business.

He ran a business installing and fixing ACs, and while he was doing his jobs he noticed a lot of his customers needed a vent duct cleaning service.

So he added the service to his business and approached other HVAC companies who didn’t offer the service and made an offer to them.

The offer was simple, access to that company's entire customer base to only promote duct cleaning services to not compete with his main business, and offered to cut him 30% of all sales.

This simple and strategic approach made this guy a lot of money by bringing him tons of customers who were hot buyers, and he didn’t need to pay a dime in advertising to do it.

The Key To Building A Real Business That Makes Real Money On A $0 Investment

I shared the story I did above because of how simple and “out-of-the-box” kind of thinking that was.

Go to the competitors and get access to their customer base. Why couldn’t I apply that to my coaching business? Or any new business I want to start?

There is no rulebook telling you how things must be done when you’re starting a new venture — yes there is guidance, but don’t let the guidance become your only way of seeing things.

So the key to building a real business that makes real money without investing any money to do it is by changing your thinking.

And thinking outside the puny box that is what you know.

Realize that there is an entire world of different ways to do business, and there is no rhyme or reason to stick to one approach without broadening your perspective.

And one of the best ways to broaden your perspective is by using the power of strategic partnerships.

This is why today we will focus on strategic, creative, and extremely lucrative partnerships that cost zero upfront to start.

The only payment is your willingness to think differently. You have an abundance of that, don’t you?

So use it.

Your imagination and willingness to act out on that image will be the ultimate determining factor to your success or lack thereof.

This is why I love partnerships because no closed mind can truly benefit from them.

Partnerships will force your mind to open and get creative because there are simply so many ways to do it and make it a win all the way around.

Thinking in the form of collaboration will make you more creative, period.

And today we’ll be discussing many ways to creatively start an entire business by locking arms with other companies.

But it won’t be short — I’m going all in. You ready?

Why Joint Ventures Are Incredible For Building A Business With Zero Funding

So let’s say you are great at helping Dog Trainers build their businesses without burning themselves out.

You make a course on it and then when it’s all done and you’re proud of what you made, but…how the heck do you get people to buy it?

Instead of paying for ads, you can get creative.

Why don’t you just approach dog training certification companies and present them with an offer?

Show them how your course can enrich the quality of their students' lives by helping them become successful dog trainers who make a full-time income with the skills they taught them.

Then show them how it can be worth tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to them in extra revenue that they have to do nothing for but suggest your service to them after their students graduate.

Show them that this can truly be a win-win all the way around.

Imagine if you did this with 30 different certification companies, what kind of impact that would have on your business?

And that right there is the reason why partnerships are the best way to start a new business without any capital.

It allows you to leverage OPR — Other people's resources.

In terms of starting a business on $0, the resources that will help you the most are the audiences of those other companies.

Companies have a lot of data on their customers. At a bare minimum, they have their name, phone number, and email.

By partnering with another business or individual who has complementary services, you can access opportunities that may have otherwise been out of reach by accessing their list of customers.

For example.

For my hypnotherapy business, I found a company with clients who could benefit from my services, built a relationship and became the “in-house” hypnotherapist for his clients.

I approached him with this email letter here:

“Hey Chad, Since all your other mail is from people who need something from you, let me say right off that I don’t need your money.
I don’t need anything at all from you.
I would like, however, to help you develop and improve the experience
of your clients. In a way that makes them more successful in your
program, which means more success stories.
More success stories, more clicks. Period.
The perceived likelihood of achievement plays a vital role in whether
or not a prospect decides to become a customer.
Real success stories do the job here.
But it gets better…
They’ll want to stay longer with you and refer more of their friends.
More referrals, more clients, and more cash in the bank (since referrals are
cheaper).
And I want to do all of this for you, at no cost.
Plus, I’d like to actually pay you and add an extra stream of income to
your business, without interfering with your brand.
Let me explain.
If your client success rate is not above 90% then you’re leaving money
on the table.
90% success rate leads to 80% or higher average retention per
customer.
Increasing the lifetime value of your customer.
A 90% and higher success rate is possible, and if you don’t have this
it’s not because your delivery is lacking.
You actually have a great delivery system.
You are a real expert. You deliver real results. And you’re damn good
at it.
You even made a name of yourself in this space, but..
Your client’s success may not be where you want it to be.
Which means you’re leaving tons of money and impact on the table.
This isn’t because your coaching program sucks, it’s actually better
than most in your industry, you actually overdeliver (which is why you
are getting this email)…but still, some clients just don’t “get it” even if they are a PERFECT fit.
And that’s not your fault, it actually comes down to your clients
mindset.
I don’t mean the typical “mindset” b.s. you hear out there.
What I mean is some of your clients may not be SUBCONSCIOUSLY
wired for the amount of success that you deliver.
So no matter what new strategy they try, they’ll never have the “mental
capacity” to actually receive and maintain the results you promise
them.
They aren’t fully connected with your process, and it’s because their
subconscious mind is influencing them to be confused, lost, stuck and
sometimes causes them to completely give up.
They have deep subconscious friction points that cause them to
sabotage their success without even knowing it.
You probably experienced this at times too I bet.
Procrastinating, overthinking, and hesitating to trust yourself to follow a
proven process.
So until you remove this friction point, they’ll be another client that
fell through the cracks. And potentially another chargeback.
The only problem is, over 97% of these friction points are hidden in
the unconscious mind.
That’s where we come in.
Me and my team of Rapid Transformational Therapists remove these
subconscious “friction points” that are preventing your clients from
succeeding with YOUR service.
Rapid Transformational Therapy is a Revolutionary Hypnotherapy that
is used by Grammy-winning musicians, CEOs, elite Olympic athletes,
royalty and Oscar-winning actors to rapidly shift destructive thinking
and behavioral patterns to enhance their performance.
These sessions are the shortcut to behavioral change — and when I
say shortcut, I mean it.
People literally let go of lifelong problems in a single hour during
these sessions.
And I want to be the #1 person you refer all clients to who need this
level of help, however in order to do so, I know I first must be of value
to you and become credible in your mind.
I’d like to do this in the following way.
I want to offer you a free session up front, valued at $1500
When the session gives you a breakthrough experience and rapidly
helps you create desired results, I hope that you will consider
partnering with me in the following way.
I would love the opportunity to go into your community, offer extreme
value and take them through a group experience (that you approve of
course — after you experience it) — and let you make an
announcement that we are partnering with you to enhance their
experience and success.
In the end, helping your clients improve their lives even further, while giving you some cash to take home for yourself, and adding you to our
list of referral partners that WE can send clients to.
That’s it.
That’s the offer.
And you can say no.
I just haven’t seen many coaches do this — which means I want to
help you stand out.
-Adrian
Founder of Potentia LLC.
P.s. Oh, I almost forgot, I want to give you a 40% of the revenue generated for every client you send my way.”

And yes, this turned out to be very lucrative for me. And I didn’t need to invest any money in advertising to bring these clients in, I just needed to give value in the form of my time.

But pay attention to how I approached him.

It was 1000% focused on him and adding value to him, not taking anything away from him — at all.

I was adding to his and his clients' lives, and it got me direct access to a client base that actually wanted what I had to offer.

This is how you need to be thinking with every single company you approach.

Lead with the attitude of “increase” and the return will be beautiful for you.

Be sincere in your desire to help them.

Do you see how doing these kinds of things with multiple companies could be very helpful in bringing in clients? With zero ad cost?

That’s exactly what I did.

Why Leveraging Other Complimentary Audiences Is The Key To Fast Growth

Here’s another scenario for you.

You have a business that sells swimsuits, gear, and toys.

What if instead of setting up your own store with a lot of overhead, you just went to hotels that were on the beach and offered to set up some products in the lobby and cut 50% of all the sales?

This would be good for the hotel because #1 — they get access to another stream of revenue.

#2 — they are adding value to their customers who are clearly visiting the hotel to be on the beach. Instead of making the customers travel elsewhere to buy swim gear, they can offer it to them right there.

And #3, the customers will appreciate the hotel more because they are meeting needs that they did not expect them to meet. This is great for referral and repeat business,

The most beautiful part?

The only cost you’d have to fork out is the cost of your product, and zero cost in marketing and selling that product, while also avoiding the huge overhead of running a physical store.

You see, leveraging other audiences works beautifully because you are getting the attention of people who are already interested in that area of service.

Put the cake in front of the children and they’ll likely eat it.

In other words, put your offer in front of qualified prospects and they’ll likely buy.

Joint venture partnerships allow you to do this, as well as allow you to gain credibility and cut past the struggle of trying to get the market to know, like and trust you on your own.

When you’re endorsed by a business with credibility, you gain its level of credibility in front of its customers. Making it so much easier to buy from you.

A Few Examples Of Leveraging People’s Audience For Fast Growth

Example 1

There was a young guy who started a pressure-washing business after getting a pressure-washing machine for cheap.

With zero dollars to advertise and not wanting to door-knock (which was the norm in that industry) he got creative.

He found a list of real estate agents, garage door mechanics, interior designers, and lawn care professionals.

He then began reaching out to each of these companies making a simple offer.

When they get a new customer, they strategically introduce them to his pressure-washing services and he would cut them a percentage of the sales for the life of every customer they sent his way.

This worked beautifully for him because all of those companies had customers that could actually benefit from his service, meaning they were prequalified leads by default.

With zero dollars to start, this young man was making well over $100,000 a year as a 19-year-old.

Example 2

A young real estate agent was tired of fishing in the red sea of leads that all the other agents were fishing in.

So instead of spending money and time advertising, she made a list of apartment complexes in her city.

Why? Because people who rent apartments are likely going to want to buy a house down the line and would be prime clientele for this needing a real estate agent.

So, every time a client would not renew a lease, he’d question if they were looking for a house, and if they were he knew just the person.

This allowed him to profit from his customers even after they stopped transacting their money with him.

After having set up this kind of relationship with dozens of apartment complexes, the young real estate agent never had to worry about where her next client was coming from.

Example 3

A pair of two college students were really good at designing websites for all kinds of companies.

They were trying to get clients by sending cold emails but the results were less than satisfactory.

So, what they did was approach other web developers and cut a deal with them, this time, it was something different.

First, they approached competitors — not complimentary businesses — which is already a bold move.

They then asked the company how much money they spent on acquiring a lead, and asked how much of their leads they convert.

With the answers they made a simple point:

“You spend all of this money on acquiring leads that don’t end up converting, so why don’t you hand those leads off to us and offer them a cheaper option through us, and we’ll send you 50% of every sale? This way you don’t lose the money you invested into that lead.”

An offer that the company couldn’t turn down, this was literally free money for them.

Do you see how your imagination is truly your only barrier?

Example 4

A jeep dealer was tight on cash for advertising, so he thought that he could bring in customers without needing to spend any money to get them.

So, he went to other dealerships in his area, dealerships that sold completely different brands, makes, and models. Dealers that did not have Jeeps.

His proposal was simple.

When somebody comes to your lot and doesn’t buy, ask them if they’d like to see a few jeeps that he has a special discount on, and if the customer said yes he’d send them to his dealer, and they’d get a commission.

There were even times when customers would insist on getting a jeep, and if that was the case, even better for him.

Example 5

This one is my personal example and it’s how I am currently selling and growing my Power Pitch company without spending any money upfront.

I built a course that shows coaches, consultants, course creators, experts, and authors how to make more sales by getting booked on top-ranking shows every week (without paying a dime in PR or guest fees).

What I did was make a list of companies that I knew had my client.

Certifications (Coaching, NLP, hypnotherapy, marketing, etc.)
Business masterminds
Marketing/sales courses
Courses/programs on how to build courses.
Publishing coaches/services
Book writing coaches
Sales coaches
Sales agencies

I then began approaching every one of these companies with a simple proposal.

For the certification companies, course creation companies, and publishing services it was simple.

When a customer gets the certification, creates a course, or publishes a book — immediately offer my product as a “next step.”

“Now that you got your certification/book/course — this will help you sell it.”

This added massive value to their audience which strengthened their relationship with them, while also getting a free stream of revenue because I cut them 50% of every purchase.

For the business masterminds, marketing courses, sales coaches, and agencies my approach was a little different.

When you get a new customer, you are ultimately trying to help them grow their businesses. My course can aid in that process, so I want to offer it to your customers as a standalone product or integrated into your core services.
I then cut them a percentage of every single sell.

How To Think Through Setting Up Your Very Own Joint Venture Partnerships

Now that I’ve sold you on venture partnerships and given you some simple examples that can inspire you to come up with your own ideas, now it’s time for just that…

Coming up with your own ideas for lucrative JV opportunities.

Here is how I personally think through the process.

Step 1 — Get clear on your dream customer (the customer avatar)

Getting clear on your dream customer is extremely important because it allows you to focus your resources and efforts on attracting and serving the right people.

When you know exactly who your dream customer is, you can tailor your JV efforts to target only your dream audience.

This will result in higher conversion rates, faster growth, and better clients and customers.

If you haven’t done this yet then I encourage you to follow the steps below to get clear on yours.

This will make everything easier.

1.) Define your target customer:

Start by identifying the characteristics of your ideal customer, including their demographics (age, gender, income, etc.), interests, needs, and preferences.

Consider what motivates them to make a purchase and what factors influence their decision-making process.

2.) Create customer personas:

Use the information you have gathered to create detailed customer personas, which are fictionalized representations of your ideal customers. These personas can help you to better understand the motivations, behaviors, and needs of your target customers.

3.) Gather data and insights:

Use a variety of methods to gather data and insights about your target customer, including market research, customer surveys, and customer interviews.

This can help you to validate your assumptions about your target customer and gather additional information about their preferences and behaviors.

4.) Analyze and refine:

Review the data and insights you have gathered to identify trends and patterns. Use this information to refine and update your customer personas and target customer definition.

5.) Test and iterate:

As you learn more about your target customer, be sure to test and refine your marketing and sales efforts to ensure that they are effectively reaching and resonating with your ideal customers. Don’t be afraid to make changes and adjustments as you continue to learn and grow.

By following these steps, you can get clear on your target customer and create a focused and effective marketing strategy that helps you to reach and serve your ideal customers.

Step 2— Get clear on where your dream customer is already shopping.

Once you get clear on who your dream customer is, ask yourself this simple question:

“Where is my customer already spending their money?”

Make lists of the things they buy, then make a list of companies that sell that stuff and begin to highlight the ones that you are complimentary to your product or vice versa.

Ex: You sell organic meal prep, maybe a gym would be a good partner.

This will be the first list of people you begin marketing to.

Step 3— Get clear on what your customer buys before they buy your product.

In my example for my podcast pitching company, I made a list very similar to the one I already shared above of things they bought before they’d need my product.

Here were my answers:

Certifications (Coaching, NLP, hypnotherapy, marketing, etc.)
Business masterminds
Marketing/sales courses
Courses/programs on how to build courses.
Marketing books
Sales books
Accountants
Publishing coaches/services
Book writing coaches
Sales coaches
Sales agencies
Marketing/CRM software

Do the same for yourself.

For example, if you’re a personal development speaker ask yourself, what are event planners buying before they look for a speaker?

If you speak at companies, chances are they hired an event planning consultant to put together their event.

Like one of my friends who helps coaches and consultants create and run webinars and other virtual events like summits that earn 6–7 figures.

If I was a speaker who spoke at virtual summits for a fee, I’d approach him and do the following.

I’d tell him I could help his clients enrich their experience by adding value to their summits.

You can ask him to suggest your speaking services to clients he knows could benefit from what you speak about, and cut him a nice percentage of the deal.

You’d be surprised how open people are to doing things like this, I mean, why not? It’s literally a win for everyone involved.

Step 4— Get clear on what your customer buys after they buy your product.

Now get clear on what your customers will be buying AFTER they buy your product.

If you sell engagement rings, likely the next step for them is wedding dresses, catering, and finding a venue, right?

What you can do in this case is build referral partnerships with companies that offer those things, and create extra streams of revenue for sending the other companies paying customers.

All you have to do is make sure you offer it to your customers at the right time.

“Now that you got engaged, I know the perfect place to get wedding dresses.”

See how that works?

It brings in revenue for you that is free and wouldn’t have existed otherwise, helping you build a healthy business.

And no, it’s not salesly, it’s caring enough about your client to see their next needs before they do, and caring, even more, to find highly qualified products & services to meet those needs.

This means you also negotiate the best deal for them too.

If you run a book publishing business you can find a marketing course that helps your clients sell their books and negotiate a deal to where you get the course for free or at a discount in exchange for your customers' names & emails and then offer it as a bonus or upsell — making your offer look better.

How is that salesly?

That’s called being absolutely interested in improving the life of your clients and customers.

Step 5— Get clear on the list of possible opportunities that exist for you and them

Now that you have a list of potential partners, you can begin brainstorming different ways that the partnership can work out.

For example, I am going to include the 6 opportunities I approach my partners with and these can get the creative juices flowing.

These are the main ways the partnerships end up going

They incorporate my offer into theirs and structure it as a “bonus” as I did with the copywriting and sales course I incorporated into my offer, giving me a certain percentage of every sale they make. So as they grow, so do I.
They add it on the backend of their offer as an up-sell, and they keep 50% of the profits.
They sell it to their clients after they graduated from their programs. For example, a company that certifies hypnotherapists will offer this to their graduates. “Now that you’re certified, here’s how to market.”
They promote it to their email list, both people who have bought or haven’t bought their course services — and I give them 50% of the sales.
They send me all of their leads and I cut 50% of each sale I make to the leads I got from them.
They offer it as a “supplement” to their service to every customer who buys their core offer.

And that is how I’m turning these relationships into “win, win, win” partnerships.

You can think of your product and service now, and how it can beautifully integrate into another company.

This is where you get really creative.

And this here is exactly how you think about creating joint venture partnerships that have a beautiful return — without needing to invest any money at first.

A Business Idea That Literally Anyone Can Do And Make Boat Loads Of Money (With Of Course…0$ Upfront)

So there is a simple idea that I wanted to include here for anybody to take and run with.

It’s a sure way to make some good money without a single penny invested. Just time, creativity, and hunger.

The idea is simple.

You’re going to be basically a “joint venture broker.”

All you have to do is go and find a product that you like and want to promote and negotiate a deal if you can find customers for it, you will get a certain percentage of the sales.

Make sure it is worthwhile.

Then go to a company that has the ideal audience for that product/service, and tell them you have a product that you can offer to their customers that will add value to their customer experience and bring more revenue in.

Once they agree on a joint venture, go back to the first person and get the deal done — and boom, you’re off to the races.

You can also find companies and ask them if you were to find more products for their customers (that would improve their customer experience) would they split the revenue with you, if yes, go out and find the product and tell that company you already have a list of qualified leads.

No overhead. No employees. No paid marketing. No money to invest…

Nada. Just pure hustle and an attitude of increase.

If you do this let me know because I’d love to know how it goes for you!

In Conclusion

Starting and growing a business with no capital can seem like a daunting task, but it is definitely possible with the right strategy and mindset.

Leveraging the power of joint ventures is a powerful tool that allows you to tap into resources and expertise that you may not have access to on your own.

By identifying potential partners and crafting mutually beneficial agreements, you can gain access to new markets, customers, and revenue streams without having to invest your own money.

While building and maintaining joint ventures does require effort and attention, the potential rewards make it a viable option for any business looking to grow with limited resources.

The upside can be exponential.

And now that you’re equipped with this information, what is your next move?

Let me know in the comments below!

And please, if you enjoyed this please share it with a friend that could benefit from this — and don’t forget to leave a clap and a comment and give me a follow.