If you are already successful and your business is booming like the Chinese economy, you are naturally inclined to take a respite and splurge a little. For most entrepreneurs a holiday in Dubai, which was nowhere in your list of priorities, will suddenly occupy the topmost position.
Clubbing, cars, and shopping are not usually taken lightly. “One comes to this world once”, remember? Attention to the customers and service quality which was at 99% begins to drop slightly. Dust begins to accumulate in places they were never allowed to. Daily office cleaning drops to a weekly routine. An unsightly heap gradually collects by the corner. Customers will start to notice these changes and begin to drop little by little while you are away cruising the hell out of life.
No amount of warning and shouting will be good enough to bring your attention back to reality. Looking in the mirror and evaluating your situation objectively is not something that comes natural to most people. Only one thing has the magic touch you need.
One day you will wake up and be like bam …you are in trouble. You bank account is red. Your wife is on the other side threatening and breathing smoke out of her nostrils. The customers, who were your cash cows, have dropped from 80 per month to 10. Cash is no more flowing in.
You “eyes go suddenly clear” because that’s what happens at ground zero, your lowest point. You will not need someone to cuss you for being so lavish and irresponsible; you will happily do that for yourself. You will learn to reorder your steps and begin to swear oaths that will likely stand the test of time. Planning for raining days will make a great lesson for you.
Then you will get back to work, severely hacking at your wants until they thin down to needs and you discover things that mattered to you most in life.
That is usually some of the awful ways running out of money can teach you vital life lessons. You don’t have to wait for all that to happen.
As a beginner being cash strapped can be your number one survival strategy and this is how:
Lack of money puts a leash on you.
There are parts of you, your traits and character you never knew about. There are some beasts and self-destructive tendencies lying dormant in you, out of touch with your sense and feelings, and waiting for the right triggers. You will be surprised at what a jerk you will become if you just had 10 million dollars drop into your account from “nowhere”.
Your reasoning and senses will blank out and a new person takes over you. The tendency to squander, a taste for luxury and expensive things and the lure to run off once the cash is big are triggered by money most times. To some extents you do not know yourself. You cannot say exactly how much self-control and discipline you have inside you until you are put to a real test.
If you had so much money early on in your business while you are still learning and grappling with survival, these traits are likely to show up early, sprawl out of control and spoil things for you.
Being cash strapped puts them in their place, while you have a clear mind to pursue what is important
Little start-up capital forces out the strengths in you
My friend once said that lack of money will force you to discover talents you never knew you had.
You will be pushed to learn skills you need which ordinarily you will throw away money to hire someone with those skills. You will rightly become a generalist at this stage of your business. Your focus will become razor sharp and your steps more discrete.
Limited cash gives your ego a necessary beating.
As an entrepreneur your ego is usually your most priced article and greatest enemy. It builds a wall around you as you try to protect it from crashing. It shorts you out of valuable interactions, lessons and opportunities. It is also one thing that holds you back from taking an idea from creation to fruition. Your ego is afraid of failing. It fears that people will laugh at you and is always conscious of status and class. The worst of all it feeds fat on money.
But when the cash is limited, the ego gets a severe beating. It crashes to the ground and leaves you free to fear no falls. You are freed to grab opportunities, you are pushed to take actions and necessity humbles you to make some inconvenient choices that are rather good for your business. You learn to drop your ego and look at yourself objectively. That’s when you can ask, “Where am I falling short?” and “what must I do?”
It gives you a safety net while you test-run your idea
Your first steps are always wrong. That’s normal. Your first hand writing when you began to learn how to write was horrible. You were hitting the tennis ball off the table when you first started playing the table tennis game. For the dancers, you always get the first steps wrong until overtime you have learned and perfected overtime. Believe me you haven’t changed and your first step in launching a new startup, or into a new line of business isn’t going to be without mistakes.
With little start-up capital you will be forced to create a minimum viable product, put theories to practice first to see what works and what doesn’t work, while still putting so little at stake.
When you have tested and proved your mettle, convinced yourself that this is what you really want to do and follow through to the end, and cleared your mind from clutters and theories then you can continue on a clearer path with a better defined objectives and goals. Imagine having millions in funding and finding out after a few moves that the idea was wrong after all, and isn’t going to work. It is an understatement to say you will be sorry for yourself.
Post flash:
If your job is so juicy that you can provide all the needs of your family and much more. Everyone around you depends on your fat salary. You cannot foresee any troubles coming some few years on. Just stop and ask yourself:
What would happen to my family if something happens to me?
What would happen to you if something happens to your job and highly cherished position?

Source: www.entopalab.com/this-is-how-starting-a-business-with-a-little-cash-can-become-your-greatest-advantage
You need another source of income and the next post will show you how to find great ideas that pay the bills always. Keep watching