New Venture Lab: Equipping Christian Entrepreneurs

I often hear the lament "If I only had more capital…" and I must admit that in most of my bigger ventures, I have fallen prey to operating that way as well - devising business plans that require massive amounts of capital - call it the MBA curse if you will.

 

But there is hope for the less capitalized in that there are countless businesses that can be started with very little money.  These businesses are service businesses that do not require any investment in manufacturing infrastructure, nor do they require any inventory that chews up working capital.  Instead, these are the types of businesses that require a good dose of humility and hard work.  While these business models are not as scalable or repeatable as a web-based or IT-enabled business, you can still achieve significant leverage through employees, and your ROI (return on investment) will be higher and faster due to the little to no up-front investment.

 

Consider the following real examples that should encourage those with nothing more than a heart to serve:

• One man started a window cleaning business with less than $100 in sponges, squeegees, rags and cleaning solution.  His operation has since grown into a company that nets him a six-figure income, all while allowing him to work from home with his family (read more about his story here in our Profiles section.)
• Another entrepreneur started a pool cleaning company with less than $200 in supplies to put himself through seminary and ended up hiring someone to manage it after graduation.  The company continued to bless him with income for over 30 years, freeing him up to pursue many church works that he otherwise could not have followed without the ongoing earnings from the company.
• In another pool cleaning example, an entrepreneur that had lost everything in a previous failed venture, bounced back by the grace of God, a spirit of humility and cheerful diligence, when he moved to a new city with literally no money left except to buy a few pool cleaning supplies.  He went on to build a pool cleaning route and sold it for over $50,000 just ten weeks later.  He commented to me that he did not even have enough money for a direct mailing campaign, so he just went door-to-door to build his customer base.  That's humble diligence in action.
• In another case, I called a yellow pages ad for a company to clean out my HVAC vents and ducts.  The hard-working immigrant that showed up to do the job had only been in the U.S. for 18 months, having arrived from Eastern Europe with nothing more than the shirt on his back.  Yet, he was busy supervising three crews that day he was at my home with an average billing of $2,500 each.  He had started out cleaning ducts by hand and saved enough money to buy sophisticated wet vacs out of his initial earnings.  His only other investment over time was a used service van per crew and cell phones so he could direct the crews' work.
• In another case of marveling at the simple business model of someone I hired for my home, I hired a man that worked with his sons to replace several window screens.  Just a few hours after showing up, he drove away several hundred dollars richer, having installed several window screens at around $40 each.  His investment was a slick little mobile screen cutting and framing machine he had picked up at Home Depot for a few hundred dollars.  His supplies consisted only of rolls of window screen material and aluminum frame that he cut to measure onsite with a power hacksaw.
• One Saturday while I was working in my yard, a man stopped his truck and jumped out to tell me that he noticed that I had a dent in one my cars in my drive way.  Maybe I'm just a sucker, but he had a good sales pitch about how much cheaper he was than a body shop and thirty minutes later he drove away with $200 in his pocket and I had a job well done.  His tools consisted of two different types of dent pullers, two different styles of hammers and a drill.  His supplies included putty and several grades of sand paper.  (For the final painting, he referred me to an auto paint store to pick up a small can of matching paint to finish the job myself.)  He worked out of an auto body shop during the week, but he said he could easily pick up an extra thousand dollars or two every Saturday when he cruised neighborhoods as he was doing that day.
• In another case, a pastor started a home health care business with his family.  They converted old farm outbuildings into living quarters and earn $12,000 per month to house and feed four elderly clients.  The older daughters do the cooking and cleaning for their clients and the sons trundle the meals to them in their peaceful little farm abodes while dad is freed up to shepherd his church.  They are thrilled to be fulfilling a biblical mandate to care for widows, practice hospitality and provide for the family.
• Another man that I've know for years started a restaurant supply and repair company with absolutely no money by offering to repair commercial kitchen equipment to customers that paid him in advance so he could buy the necessary parts.  That business has since grown into a $40 million business with operations in several states.  He enjoys a net income of over $3 million per year while checking in periodically from his condo in Hawaii.  His ROI is infinity, having built a very valuable business out of nothing.  When asked about his success, he gives the glory to God, but his stories abound with tales of hard work in the early days of the business.

The list goes on including lawn service companies, cleaning services, etc., but what is consistent in these stories are the following characteristics:

• The entrepreneur started with very little money
• The entrepreneur started out performing the service himself and then hired others, training them to do it his way
• The entrepreneur did not wait for customers to come to him, but he went out and sold them directly
• The entrepreneur did not have an MBA or any formal business training (in fact, that kind of training would likely not have humbled them enough to start off as they did.)

As I consider the many success stories of valuable business started for nearly nothing, I am certainly humbled as I recall the many times that I felt I could not start a business at all without sufficient capital so I could make a big splash and "do it right."  Shame on me for not being as resourceful, as diligent and as humble as the men profiled above.  May God give us all grace as we labor in humility.