…A dream come true.
Say you want to start an online business. Either your 1st or your n’th (if you’re a serial entrepreneur :)). Either because you want to add an extra income source or perhaps to supplement your current revenues…
And I think that’s great.
Having your own business (and two or more) seems to be the ultimate solution to a journey towards fiscal freedom.
How would you like to to be able to use something you know (email) to not only start an online business but also have its costs paid, from that business itself?
Sounds like a stretch?
I used to think so too. You see, email marketing is still the best way to interact with your subscribers and customers. As long as you use it the right way and not bombard them with it…
But before we get into how you can use email like I did, allow me to to ask you a few simple questions that address the business costs element of my initial question…
What do you do?
If you happen to have some money to invest in setting up a business, but you’re not sure if that idea, for that business, it’s going to work for you?
In other words, understanding that all business entails some risk, how can YOU ensure you take the lowest risks possible without losing your money?
Now, I want you to imagine, for a moment, having the ability to set up an online business and generate revenues within weeks, if not days.
Imagine having the ability to see what’s working, or not, within 24 hours from implementing an idea and if it does, scale it. And if it doesn’t, re-work it and have a go at it again.
Don’t you think the ability to see things through like that would make all the difference in terms of setting up a business and low the risk as much as possible?
I think you’d agree with me that it would.
Now here’s how savvy business owners and smart people acquire that ability. They…
“Bootstrap It”
In case you’re not familiar with bootstrapping, this how I’d like to define it…Bootstrapping is basically a strategy where you spend the absolute minimum to get a return and you re-invest that into the progressive development of a business until that business makes profits.
The goal of bootstrapping is that the business funds itself!
Using the concept of “bootstrapping costs” and Email Marketing as the medium, I’ve managed to set up and run successfully a number of different businesses. Some worked great. Some didn’t. The success of those businesses or not it’s not what’s important here.
What’s important however, is the ability gained to bootstrap my business costs by taking action and see results immediately.
Want to know how I got the ability to do that?
I’ve developed a framework. And I did that so I can systematize the process and make it repeatable.
So I can use it when ever I wanted to setup a new business!
Now, before I tell you about the framework, let me first touch a bit on …
What can you bootstrap?
Well, pretty much any operation, functional and/or development cost of an online business can be bootstrapped. Let me give you a few examples from my own online businesses…
The 1st example is about an information business.
- This business has operational costs of around $2.5k per month.
- Costs include servers, email service providers among other and 2 staff running and managing it (part time).
- It generates around $7k revenues per month.
Let me give you another example….
This one operates in the consulting market.
- It has costs (operational, marketing etc) around $7k per month and
- Generates around $20k-$21k/month.
And here’s a 3rd example from a little software business I run.
- This has costs (operational, staff etc) around $5k and
- currently makes around $13-$16k/month.
Now let me ask you this…
Are you starting to see a pattern between costs and revenues?
I don’t mean the actual numbers (costs, revenues) as these will differ depending on the size of the business and market.
I am talking however about a very important ratio.
Can you see it?
Well, If you’re paying attention you’ll notice that the costs to revenues ratio is 1:3.
In other words, for every $1 I spend I get back $3.
That’s not bad in my book. I can do that forever 🙂
Now let me share with you, how I achieve a 1 to 3 costs to revenues ratio. I use what I call …
The Bootstrapping Framework
I’ve developed the Bootstrapping Framework so I can use it when ever I want to Boot-Start any business, in any niche, REGARDLESS of fiscal situation around the world!
It’s a simple framework (by design) and it basically consists of what I call Bootstrapping Strategies (These are proven techniques and tactics compiled together that when used in such way they help me achieve my bootstrapping goals in the shortest time possible) and are all based around email marketing…
Here’s the 30k-feet view of the Bootstrapping Framework…
I use 3 Bootstrapping Strategies, that work in the online world like a charm, regardless of the latest trend(s).
These are:
- The BOPS Strategy – in a nutshell, this is about selling other vendors products on a commission base.
- The BTSS Strategy – this is about selling email traffic to people that want targeted visitors to their landing pages.
- The BPSS Strategy – this about selling own products online.
I always use these 3 bootstrapping strategies, in combination, when ever I am starting a new online business, regardless of the niche that business will be in…
An Example
Here’s what the strategic plan could look like for bootstrapping the costs of an information business, combined with email marketing (again don’t pay attention to the actual monetary figures)…
I start with the BOPS Strategy (which is about selling other peoples’ Products & Services) until I get to $1k per month.
- This enables me to bootstrap my costs for pretty much all operational costs (mainly tech tools/software I use in this case) and
- also covers my lead generation activities (such as buying traffic etc) for that business. I buy email solo drops (solo ads) from Facebook and places that are dedicated in selling solo ads like this one here, if I don’t already have leads in that market.
- I only want 1000-1500 leads/prospects at this stage to test different offers out on how they convert. (By the way, If they do convert, I start thinking about developing my own product in that market).
I then start using the BTSS Strategy (this is about selling -email- traffic to others) combining my own list of subscribers and other people’s lists (using something called Solo Ad Brokering).
- I do this using email marketing and send them free offers that I know they will appreciate as these will be related to the topic they joined my list initially.
- The offer is typically on a landing page of the customer, where they’d have to subscribe to their list to get that free offer. (By the way, this is the primary reason for people buying solo ads; to build their own lists so they can market to them later on.)
- This adds anywhere from $2-$3k to my revenues monthly and
- It enables me to bootstrap the costs of hiring at least 1 staff to manage that side of the business.
- And because I usually hire them on a commission base (for that role) the $2k quickly become $5k+, not very long after.
Then I top it all up by using the BPSS Strategy (which is about selling your own products) as a vendor using mainly ready made products that can be edited from other people.
- These will be products related to the niche my info business is in and will be products that come with PLR/White Label licenses.
- This is so I can re-brand them and sell them as my own products under my own branding.
- This adds anywhere from $2k-$10k in my revenues per month in addition to the revenues from the other 2 bootstrapping strategies.
- This last income stream then enables me to hire a developer (on a per project base) where I take the top 3 selling products (which I have identified using the BOPS strategy) and create a unique brand new product that enhances existing products in the market.
The Key Take Away
What’s important to understand here is that this framework can be used every time regardless of the niche I want to get into. The (other) key thing to take a way from this post is that it doesn’t matter what business idea you have or in what market. You can use the Bootstrapping framework on any market and niche!
By The Way…
If you want to see how I start the whole process using (CPA) affiliate marketing, in a “taboo” niche, I’ve got this case study here that you may find of interest.
P.S (You can always thank me with some coffee☕)…
Kostas “The Omnifarious Marketer” Papadakis