10 Best Ways to Start a Business With $500

How to start a business with 500 dollars.

Starting a business can be a great investment with a high level of profitability. If you are looking to start a business with 500 dollars, this is the article for you.

You can start a business with 500 dollars by forming your business, building a professional website, and using free design tools. Testing products and building up an email list are additional ways to start a business with 500 dollars.

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Can You Start a Business With $500?

You can start a business with $500. When starting your business you will need to create a website that your customers can visit. You will also need to use ZenBusiness to form your business.

By taking advantage of free and affordable resources online, you will easily be able to stick to a $500 budget.

What Business Can You Start With $500?

You can start an online clothing, affiliate marketing, or dropshipping business with $500. Each of these businesses can be run entirely online and have very affordable start-up costs.

Online Clothing

The main expenses for an online clothing store would be purchasing the product, website hosting, and potentially paid advertisements.

When first starting an online clothing store, it’s recommended to initially create your business’s website. After you’ve got a website up and running, it’s time to look for potential suppliers.

Once you’ve got your website up and running (Tip: Use Bluehost for affordable high-quality web hosting) you can start running paid ads. Alternatively, if you want to advertise for free, you could grow your business’s social media following organically.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is another great online business to start with $500. Basically, affiliate marketing is when you promote another business’s product or service for a commission of each sale.

Affiliate commissions can range from two to seventy percent or more. So as you can see, there is a lot of money to be made as an affiliate marketer.

There are affiliate marketing networks that you can join to find affiliate products to promote. Alternatively, you could reach out to various businesses and see if they have an affiliate program you could join.

Affiliate marketers usually focus all their time on creating a high-quality website, or advertisement to promote their selected affiliate products.

Dropshipping

Dropshipping is a very popular business to start, primarily among teens and young adults. It’s so popular among a younger demographic because of the method in which the inventory is handled.

Dropshippers only have to purchase inventory after they make a sale. So there is little initial product investment because no inventory needs to be kept on hand.

After a sale is made, dropshippers simply ship the product directly from their supplier to the customer and keep the profit.

But no business comes without potential downsides. A lot of dropshippers fail because they choose a product that does not convert.

If you spend a lot of money on ads, you would expect to make a profit right? Well, if you choose the wrong product to sell, it is not always a guarantee.

However, you can use SaleHoo to find the perfect product and supplier for your dropshipping business. Finding the right product can make or break a dropshipping business, so it’s important to initially pick the right product.

10 Ways to Start a Business With $500 in 2022

Here are the 10 best ways to start a business with $500 in 2022.

1. Build a Professional Website

Cost: Under $5 per month

The first step to starting a business with $500 is building a professional website. This will be a place where you can inform others on what you sell, what your business’s mission is, and anything else that pertains to the business.

When the words “professional website” are brought up, most think of hiring a website designer. But that can cost thousands of dollars and is not always a good investment.

Instead, to stay within our $500 budget, you should start a website using Bluehost and design it with WordPress. You can pick one of the many professional themes available and add your own personal touch to your site.

The great thing about designing a website yourself is that it is actually very easy to do. If you ever get stuck with anything, just go to YouTube or Google. I’ve probably had hundreds of questions answered that way and I never had to pay a website designer or developer for help.

You can start building your own professional website today using Bluehost.

2. Use Free Online Design Tools

Cost: Free

Starting most businesses will involve some sort of design. It could be as simple as just creating your business logo.

Whatever it is, free online design tools can be a great way to keep expenses low when first starting a business. Canva, for example, is one of the best online design tools that you can use to design logos, social media posts, or even website images and graphics.

Canva offers a free plan that works extremely well for those starting a business on a budget. Initially, the free plan will be all that you need as a new business owner.

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3. Build Up An Email List

Cost: Free

An email list is one of the best ways to reach your business’s audience. It’s a great way to inform them about new products, services, or changes to the business.

Using Mailchimp, you can start growing your email list with up to 2000 contacts. One of the best ways to get people to sign up for your mailing list is to offer a freebie.

Promote your mailing list on your social media and website, and watch that list grow!

4. Form A Business

Cost: $49+

Forming a business in your state is important and using ZenBusiness is easy to do. It should be one of the first things you do as a new business owner.

ZenBusiness will help you file all your business paperwork fast and most importantly, accurately.

5. Test Products

Cost: $67+

If you want to start a business with 500 dollars that will sell either physical or digital products, consider initially testing products to find the best one. You can test various products and can pick the most profitable one.

When you’re running a business, you want to be as profitable as possible. The more money your business makes, the faster and more efficiently you can scale it.

You can use SaleHoo to research and find the most profitable product for your business. When you first start out, if your business is product-centered, test out a few products to find the best ones.

Start using SaleHoo today!

6. Create a Content Schedule

Cost: Free

Starting a business can seem quite cumbersome. Especially when you take into account all the content you need to put out on your website, and various social media.

This is why you need to create a schedule that outlines when and where content needs to be posted.

For example, if you are trying to grow your business’s following organically on Instagram, posting twice a day or more is recommended.

This can seem like a lot to post. However, with a content schedule, it’s a lot easier to hold yourself accountable and stay on task.

7. Check Your Progress

Cost: Free

As you continue to grow your business and scale it up, you will want to check your progress along the way. This way, you have a better idea about what works and what does not.

There are quite a few ways to check your business’s progress. Most social media platforms have some sort of analytics feature. For monitoring your website’s analytics, you can start using Google Analytics for free.

8. Social Media Marketing

Cost: Depends

A business that does not utilize social media in some way will have a hard time growing in 2022. This being said, there are two ways to advertise on social media; paid and free advertising.

If you want to jump right into promoting your business and getting traffic, paid ads might just be for you. However, you will have to fork over some cash to start promoting.

If you don’t want to pay to advertise on social media, you can grow your business’s following organically. This option will take time to see results. But it is a great option for those with more time than money.

Related: 12 Best Instagram Business Ideas

9. Analyze Your Competition

Cost: Free

If you are planning on starting a business with $500, it is recommended to first analyze your competition. 

What exactly does analyze your competition mean? It means analyze what other businesses in your niche are doing to become successful.

Do they actively promote their mailing list? Perhaps they heavily promote on Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok.

Whatever it is, you should see what has worked for others in your niche, or industry and see if it would be smart to implement something similar. Don’t copy your competitors, but do take inspiration and put your own spin on it.

10. Utilize Accounting and Invoicing Software

Cost: Varies

Both accounting and invoicing are crucial parts of running a business. Investing in accounting and invoicing software right off the bat will really put you ahead of the competition.

Using FreshBooks, all your invoicing and accounting needs will be taken care of. They are the best accounting and invoicing software for small businesses and even offer a free trial so you can get started today.

Start using FreshBooks today!

Conclusion

Starting a business can easily be one of the best investments you can make in your life. Of course, there are risks involved, just like anything else. But starting a profitable business can mean becoming your own boss, ditching that 9 to 5, and getting to work when you want.

Anyone can start their own business with 500. By taking advantage of all the free and affordable resources available, it might cost even less.

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