The Costco Connection

and generally de-risk the opportunity.

Let’s say you’re planning to create an ACT counseling business. You could start as a part-time tutor for kids in their early teens. This ideally would not only generate incremental income, but would help you build your brand in your community, give you experience and insights, and, most importantly, develop a prospective client list, all of which you could parlay into momentum for your startup.

Consider crowdfunding

If you have an idea for a product and a knack for getting people excited about it, crowdfunding through a site like Indiegogo or Kickstarter could be another viable way to solve your capital needs. Crowdfunding can come in the form of actual investment and ownership in your company or—amazingly— in the form of prepayment by customers who want ;rst dibs on your cool product. Yes, people will park their money with you even though you’re not even in production yet.

Jump-
start your
startup
Strapped for cash?
Consider these approaches

by RICH SLOAN

or all the talk of tech-savvy,
independent-minded millennials
embracing entrepreneurship,
statistics show that many of
them aren’t. The U.S. Small Business
Administration ( sba.gov) reported that in
;;;; fewer than ; percent of millennials
were self-employed, compared with ;.;
percent for Generation X and ;.; percent
for the baby boomer generation.

High student loan debt and other economic issues may be contributing factors, making it challenging for many ;;- and ;;-somethings to start companies.

If you are among the cash-strapped millennials who could use some street smarts and a jolt of inspiration, here are just a few options to get you going.

Bootstrap your idea

If you’re low on cash, consider pursuing a business idea that doesn’t require a large amount of upfront capital.

Plenty of successful startups get o; the ground without big infusions of cash. For example, Hannah Lavon, the ;;-year-old co-founder of Hooray Hoopla, which sells and manufactures quirky mismatched socks, called Pals Socks ( palssocks.com), started up at the end of ;;;; with just ;;;; for prototypes. Now, Hooray Hoopla’s Pals Socks product line is sold in over ;;; stores nationally. That’s a full-;edged business started with less than ;;,;;;.

Start a side hustle

Working on your startup while still employed is a great way to advance your business idea, giving you ;rm footing while you con;rm some key assumptions

Crowdfunding

F
Costco members who own
a business or want to start
one can find a suite of
small-business services on
Costco.com (click “Services”).

To be a successful crowdfunding campaigner, you’ll have to demonstrate your marketing savvy and know-how.

Online marketing plays
to millennials’ strengths as,
relatively speaking, they tend
to be well connected on social
media, which is ground zero
for crowdfunding campaigns.

The challenge in the crowd-
funding landscape is to break
through the noise by telling a
compelling story and demon-
strating the irresistible nature
of your product-to-be.

You need great images and video, as well as editorial content that showcases the product and your know-how, so people will naturally want to pass them along to their own networks.—RS