Imagine someone came up to you and told you they were going to be the next Vincent van Gogh.
You say, “Great! Can I see some of your work?”
But they say, “No, because I haven’t painted anything yet.”
“Why not?” you ask.
“Because I don’t own any paints, brushes, or canvases. By the way, could you help me out with buying those?”
Odds are, you would laugh in that person’s face. First off, you wouldn’t believe that they were the next van Gogh, and second, you wouldn’t trust them with a single cent of your money, would you?
So then why on Earth should anyone loan you money to start your small business if you don’t already have a prototype?
What You Need to Know About Seed Money
The reason I bring all this up is that I think most people approach the question of loans and seed money from the wrong angle. They look at seed money as an absolute requirement, then start wondering how they can get it.
First off, seed money is not at all a requirement. In fact, I think there’s plenty of good reason NOT to look for seed money when starting your business.
Every cent of seed money that you take means you’re giving up a little more creative control of your business. If this really is YOUR business and YOUR dream you’re following, why would you want that?
Plus, if you force yourself to work with what you’ve got now and start developing and selling products before you’ve got the big money…man, that right there is entrepreneurship in its purest form.
If you can master those skills now, when it’s most challenging but most important, then you’ll be way better prepared to take your business all the way to the top.
So fund your startup by SELLING! Find the cheapest, most efficient way to productize your knowledge/skills/expertise, and start selling!
And keep in mind: this early product doesn’t have to fit your ultimate vision of your business…this is just your way of raising money to maintain creative control.
For the record, this is how I built my rapidly growing fitness franchise Fit Body Boot Camp, so you can trust me on this.
Now let’s say you still plan on approaching investors at some point. In that case, I recommend pretty much the same advice I just offered above. Why?
Because investors are picky, and they have every right to be. Instead of thinking about why you WANT investors’ money, instead think about why your business DESERVES investors’ money, and then be ready to show your evidence.
The best evidence you can offer will always be a working prototype. If you have a working model – even if it’s small and not yet profitable – that makes you far more interesting than all the wannabe entrepreneurs who only have an “idea.”
The other thing that will make you impressive is an SEO-friendly website for your business, so let’s dive into that.
How to Be SEO-Friendly
The old days of “SEO hacks” are gone. Google has honed their algorithm so that now the only real way to get to the top of the search results is to have an entertaining, useful website that people WANT to visit.
Lucky for you, I’ve got some tips on that.
First off, I like my websites to always have a video playing right at the top of the page. I always have the video play automatically, but stay muted until the visitor clicks on it. Why?
Two reasons:
First, people get annoyed when websites open with sound, so playing the video on mute keeps them from clicking away.
Second, giving them a chance to click on your video makes the site more interactive, and Google loves interactive sites.
Pepper your site with organic (NOT forced) opportunities to click and scroll, and Google will rank your SEO higher because people will be spending more time on your site, and doing more while they are there. Both those things are important for SEO.
Get on as many social media platforms as you can and make sure you link between them! (And of course, have them all link back to your main site.)
Finally, research the keywords and key phrases for your product/industry and pepper those through your site as well. Again, make sure this is organic and not forced.
The end goal is to ALWAYS make human visitors happy when they come to your site. If you do that, SEO will mostly take care of itself.
