I hear it all the time.

“I can’t afford to get started.”

Lies, I tell you! Just… lies. You may not be able to afford to build your entire idea, but you can afford to get started.

Hold up.

How can you start up with no money? Glad you asked.

Starting doesn’t mean you’re building the entire project, opening the store, or launching a finished widget. Starting means you’re taking the steps towards that end goal. Building relationships in your industry counts as starting. Building your brand on social media counts as starting. Posting regularly on a blog counts as starting. These are all free things you can do that can help you move forward without investing cash first.

With the world at your fingertips, there’s no excuse for saying getting started costs too much. Really, all it costs is your time. Here are our favorite resources that we still use (that are 100% or nearly free).

Mailchimp:

What it does:

• Let’s you build an email marketing strategy that is sure to convert prospects into customers.

• Builds segmented email lists so you can mass-email your user base or following.

• Automates the email marketing process.

Why we love it:

• Pre-designed and drag-&-drop email templates make it easy to design great emails (code-free!).

• Free to low costs monthly plans keep it budget friendly.

• Analytics track who’s opening, clicking, and more.

Trello:

What it does:

• Creates different lists of to-do’s to organize your workflow.

• Assign tasks to team members, give deadlines, and color coordinating take a traditional to-do list to the next level.

Why we love it:

• It visualizes what needs to get done for you.

• It keeps us organized and on track to complete projects.

• It’s free for most users.

Buffer:

What it does:

• Schedules social media posts in advance.

• Helps you keep a steady flow of content coming to your channels.

• Let’s you post across multiple platforms at once.

Why we love it:

• Let’s us automate posting on social media.

• Frees up time for us to work on making good content.

• Gives us insights about clicks & more.

Remember: starting up doesn’t have to be expensive. FirstGear, our entrepreneurship crash-course, condenses our 4-year entrepreneurship degrees into a few short weeks for under $100. Don’t be fooled in thinking learning this stuff has to be expensive. Spend some time investigating these tools & equip yourself with basic knowledge, you’ll be off and running in no dime (I mean, time).