Have I told you about my first business? The one I started in college?

When I was about 19 years old and a sophomore in college, my life changed when Lisa Price, owner of Carol’s Daughter, came to campus to share how she grew her business into the household name it is today.

After listening to her tell stories of whipping up body butters in her kitchen, storing boxes of product in her basement, and selling them to customers out of her living room on the weekends, I was totally sold on the entrepreneurial lifestyle. That day, I walked out of that auditorium determined to start my own business.

The first business I started, literally the day after hearing Lisa Price’s speech, was…you guessed it — a natural hair care company named Material Gurl Beauty (with the “girl” spelled with a “u” because I thought I was cool).

Though I ultimately let that business go, I always look back on that little experiment positively because Material Gurl Beauty is what ultimately led me to Think & Grow Chick. Many of the mistakes I made back then taught me major lessons that I use on my business today.

One of the biggest lessons I learned was what you think you need and what you actually need to start a business are often very different when you’re first starting out. One of the biggest mistakes I made with my first business was wasting time (and money) on things that didn’t really matter in the infancy stage of a business. Here’s my top 3 things you DON’T need to start a business…

3 Things You Don’t Need to Start Your Business…

#1: …A Ton of Money/An Investor

Don’t you dare tell me you haven’t started your business yet because you don’t have enough money. Don’t do it! If I hear one more person talk about how they would start their business but they need $XX,XXX (or a deep-pocketed investor) first, I’ll scream!

Firstly…just look around you. Seriously. The internet has made the cost of starting a business so cheap, it’s ridiculous. If you even occasionally get your hair and nails done, buy random stuff at Target, go out to dinner with your friends, and/or buy plane tickets to visit out-of-town family members, then I’m 99% sure you have enough money to start your business. And I’m not even saying you have to stop doing doing those things, I just point those spending habits out to prove that you do, in fact, have enough money to start your business.

The keyword here is start, as in, you likely have enough money to get started. Now if you’re talking about renting office space, bringing on employees, and getting a big, fancy website designed (more on that in a second…) then you’re right — you don’t have enough money. However, none of those things are needed to start your business (there’s that word again). To get started, you need a lot less than you think.

#2: …An Expensive Logo/Business Card Design/Website

Maybe it’s because I’ve been making a lot of road trips lately to visit my family and friends, but I’ve noticed something really interesting about semi-trucks.

Most of them have horribly ugly logos. Seriously. Next time you’re out driving around, check out the design on the side of the 18-wheeler hogging the left lane. (I hate when semis drive in the left lane — i.e. the FAST lane — but I digress. Maybe they only do that here in Dallas???) The logo design usually looks like clip art done in Microsoft Word and the tagline say something equally uninspiring like “Quality is Our Middle Name!”

But guess what? That truck is rolling. Meaning there’s cargo in the back and a paid driver in the front. Meaning the truck is out on a job. Meaning, someone paid the truck company to transport its goods. Meaning…that truck company is in business, baby! Ugly logo and all.

So why am I giving you a history lesson about the logo designs of semi truck companies? To show you that while expensive logos, fancy business cards, and expensive websites with all the bells and whistles are nice to have, they aren’t required to run (let alone start) a business.

Personally, I think the fixation new entrepreneurs often have over business cards, logo designs, and websites is really just a form of procrastination. Many new entrepreneurs are scared to do the real work required for having a successful business. What’s that you ask?

Coming up with a product or service that people actually want.

And I get it. Because creating something people want is a lot harder than you think. So instead of coming up with an initial idea, testing it in on real-life customers, failing, tweaking the idea, putting it back in front of customers, and repeating the process until they hit on their winning business model, many entrepreneurs will…endlessly design expensive business cards or agonize over the perfect logo instead.

If you create a product or service that people actually want — as in it solves a real problem and meets a real need — people will buy from you even if your business card is plain. In the words of entrepreneur Jullien Gordon, “your goal is to be successful, not sexy.”

My advice? Go on fiverr, 99Designs, or eLance and get an inexpensive but nice-looking logo/business card/website designed and get on with your business. You can always upgrade once you’ve been in business for a while. But first you have to get started.

#3: …A Formal Business Plan

I know, right? That’s craaazy to say! If you’re like me, you were probably taught that before you even thought about starting a business, you needed to sit down and write this 60 page document full of stats and projections and reasons why your business would be raging success if only someone would give you some money.

While you absolutely DO need a plan for your business (i.e. “business plan” – lowercase “b”, lowercase “p”) you don’t really need a formal Business Plan (capital “B”, capital “P”). At least not yet.

Not getting the difference? Okay. What I am saying is that while you do need a plan before you get started (“business plan”), it doesn’t need to be this 100-page (notice how the number of pages keeps growing?) perfectly written, perfectly bound, full-color document, complete with charts and tables (“Business Plan”). For one, that kind of formal business plan takes like, a bajillion hours to write and secondly, who has a bajillion dollars to print that sucker at Kinkos??? Honestly, there are really only 7 parts of your business that you need to plan for when first starting out. You should be clear on:

1. The product or service you’re offering,
2. The need or problem your product solves,
3. The kind of customer you’re offering product to,
4. How you’re going to find that customer,
5. How much you’re going to charge that customer,
6. Why that customer would even want (and pay for) what you’re offering, and;
7. Why they would want it from you.

That’s it. And you can outline the above in your favorite notebook, a simple word document, or even on the back of a napkin if you choose. This is what you need to get started.

Now I know this may still sound too good to be true. I basically just told you the entrepreneurial equivalent of you can eat all the carbs and chocolate you want and not gain any weight. But stick with me on this one. For one, drafting a formal “Business Plan” at the start of your business doesn’t make a lot of sense because it requires information you couldn’t possibly know without actually getting out in the marketplace and interfacing with real customers. I believe a better “business plan” is to (1) create an initial action plan that makes sense based on what you know and where stand, (2) take action on that plan, and (3) adjust your plan based on what you learned from taking action!

Still think I’m making stuff up? (“Courtney girl, you crazy! Quit making stuff up!”) I am not making stuff up!!! Check out these 3 “no business plan” business books:

• #GIRLBOSS
• Unlabel: Selling You Without Selling Out
• The Lean Startup

…and let me know what you think! 🙂

RELATED POST: 7 Must Read Books for New Women Entrepreneurs

Talk to Me:

Have you ever felt like you needed any of the above before you could start your business? Share with me in the comments.

photo credit: mcfcrandall

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