How to start your own business in just 500 INR.

How to start a business in 500 Rupees?

( DIY and no spoon feeding, show your best performance for the first 15 days for 100% result)

Whenever we think that we want to start a new business or venture, we always have to face so many complications and challenges in our self, as a hindrance. This time I picked up a challenge if we can start our own business in just ₹500 rupees or not? Here, I am specifically discussing the Indian scenario. However, this strategy will work all around the world, for sure.

Before starting a business, we need to understand that which business can be successfully started in the lower budget. We need to choose amongst the service sector (Where we don’t have to purchase any product and sell to the customers) and goods sector, product selling or manufacturing (Where we have to invest some amount to get the product or producing one). 

These types of businesses are specially categorized in the service sector, as in the goods industry we need little investment. However, there are several products related business as well, which we can be run in this category.

To effectively implement the plan, you need to put in your 100% from the moment you plan for first 15 days + Efforts of learning and implementing the technology. Otherwise, the results will be delayed or your investment (500 Rupees) may increase.

Examples of starting a business in the Service sector:

Gift Category like- T-shirt printing, Mug printing, Plate printing, visiting card printing.

Offering Repair Services:- Door to door Cycle, car and bike service, refrigerator service, AC repair, washing machine repair, Blue collar Job, Pani Puri, Food stalls, Veg snacks and Non-veg snacks services.

Maintenance Services:- RO AMC, Computer- laptop AMC, Mobile AMC and repair service, Furniture maintenance service, Welding, Tank cleaning, electrician, Mistry, other Labour services.

Blogging, Youtubing, DJ-ing, Event Management, videography, photography, Dhol service, painting boards and banners, tailoring services, gift wrapping, balloon decoration.

Examples of Product-related business in this category

Designer candles, handmade flowers, handmade gifts, handicraft items, handmade jewellery, tiffin service.

As you observed that, there are several things to do and all the above tasks are already being done in the market for ages. So, why should you choose from the above list?

The smart answer would be – Digitization. So what is it?

Everything is going online whether it is a product or service. People are selling products online through marketplaces ( Amazon, Flipkart, Ebay and many more) and similar services are also being offered in the same way ( Vista print, Goibibo, Redbus.in, Ola cabs)  so if you haven’t entered this world so far, you will be considered obsolete soon.

Now, let's start with the detailed steps:- The process is divided into different areas of work, that you need to follow.

1. Business/ Visiting card: (130 Rupees)  This is the most important tool, which works flawlessly. This is a small card which fits itself in everyone’s pocket as most of the people carries a wallet. So, there are more chances to get the leads ( business ). 100 business cards would be sufficient, to start with and you can invest more once your desired business grows. You always give the card to the people, who ask for it or you think that they can call you for your services. So, there would be very less chance of wastage, like pamphlets or flyers.

2. Domain: (100 Rupees)  I am sure, you must be thinking what is the domain name and how it is related to my business? Let me simplify it for you. Domain name is the first digital identity of your business over the Internet which is similar to your Identity card, Adhar card or PAN card and everything will be connected to this. 

As we know that everything is going online and to enhance our services or products online, we need a website. So, for making a website we need to first choose the website name like www.miragical.com, www.yahoo.com or www.youtube.com. That is the reason, the domain name is a very important asset, for your website. You can consider this as your physical address of land which you purchased and where you will build the foundation of your business so that people can access the information and details about your business. In a similar way, you will get a website name (Domain name) so that people can open your website in their browsers over different devices (Laptop, desktop, mobiles or tablets) to understand and avail the benefits of your services or products. If you want to search and book a domain, click on this link:

3. Hosting ( free trial and then 5$ per month): So, now you have decided your website name but where is the website?

As explained above, that you only got the address of your property or land. You still need to make the building, for which you need labourers for different skills. In a similar way, you need Website designer and developers to make your website. You must be thinking, that these skilled professionals will charge more than 500 Rupees per hour so this plan fails !!!

Don't panic, Wait.. Where there is a will there is a way … If you know website designing, well and good, you can design it and upload it to hosting server. Even if you don’t know, you don't have to worry about it. There are lots of online tools available by which you can make your website as you used to draw in standard 1^st – 2^nd of school. 

Search for online website designer service in www.google.com where you can get 15 – 30 days of website designing trial, after which it will be paid and trust me, the steps are so simple to follow as you only need to drag the elements from list and drop in the design area, after that you can change the content as you want. No coding needed at all. 

4. Business email: ( free trial and then 5$ per month) Till now you must be using free Gmail or Yahoo account, but this time we are going to use business email (Yes business email !!! ) and that will be similar to your domain. 

For example, currently you are using a free email service like Gmail and your email address is xyx123@gmail.com. It indicates that you have created an email in gmail.com domain and which belongs to Gmail and you should not use any free email account in business.  So you need an email address like xyz@miragical.com which indicates that you have created an email in miragical.com which is your company. Feeling the pride, right? raise your colour up.

Good news is that Google has recently launched Gsuit, which is free for 15 days and thereafter paid service (₹125 per user per month) and this is incomparable as it offers the bonus value for your money. You get business emails, documents, a spreadsheet with collaboration so that your entire team can work on the same file simultaneously. 

5. Bulk SMS/ Emails/ Whatsapp: (63 rupees for 700 SMS for all operators) you need to have a list of at least 1000 people who may be interested in your services. This list may contain your relatives, friends, colleagues, neighbours or anyone else. If you don’t have any such data, don't get worried... , you can find these on the internet. Simply go to B2B websites like just dial, sulekha, indiamart, tradeindia and other similar websites to find the numbers from this website and make a list. 

You may have SIM card of Vodafone, Reliance, Jio, Airtel or any other service providers. Normally these operators allow the user to send only 100 SMS per day, which is too good to go for starters. As we have at least 15 days for performance, we should opt for these services and recharge. If you are not sure about  SMS packages, you can contact the customer service or you can install this application ( PayTm, Free Recharge ) which will help you for several recharge packages so that you can simply recharge it via your ATM/ Debit/ Wallet or credit cards. 

Now you have recharged your SIM card with SMS packages and you are ready to rock. Kindly keep in mind that you have limited SMS pack and you need to cover more clients/ customer to market your service or product, so it is important to write your SMS effectively and it should also be catchy in just 120 / 140 word so that a single message can explain your business to the prospective clients .

Start writing SMS with your discount/Free/ scheme with your service or product name,  your location, a shortner link, your contact details with the name. for example: “Get your Static website in just ₹500. For more information visit www.bit.ly/test. Thanks, XYZ, Miragical.com.” Above message contains the catchy word “₹500 ” and “website”, which is really economical than any other company, but this can be doable. This will create huge leads of customer and they may have different requirements for their work, for which you can charge extra by explaining them.

Do not send the messages to DND numbers. Start sending bulk messages (only ones) so that you can cover many customers (100) per day.  In case, you are sending through Whatsapp, your number should be saved in receivers list. In the case of Email, you will get 500 Emails per day which is enough for a starter.

6. Stickers / Pamphlets ( 80 rupees): If you want to attract more crowd to expand the chances of success, you need to reach more and more eye bolls to your add. Prepare at least 200 advertisements and stick them near the railiway station, movie hall, inside buses rickshaws, or taxis. Do not forget to take permission if you want to stick in private properties, where you may expect more crowd. For this, you need to prepare a document in MS Word or Google Docs in Landscape mode in two columns so that you will have 2 add/ flyers per document and get it Xeroxed 99 copies. This will cost you less than ₹100 in bulk.

7. Telecalling ( 100 Rupees for 15 days): This is one of the very important aspects of your business, where you would be calling your customer one by one on a daily bases. As mentioned above, you can get the leads from B2B websites or from your contact list. Make sure that you update the date from the first moment, not the even the first day. This would be the best way by which you can speak to the customer directly, understand their requirements, book an appointment and get some references if possible and by this way, you will get lot more customers.

Note: You will need a software to maintain the database. You may use an open source software like Apache open office, Libre office, Google spreadsheet and Gsuit spreadsheet if you bought the Gsuit package. If you follow above-mentioned steps, you will succeed for sure but remember .. Ready to rock from the first day. Don't waste your time.

Total budget 473 Rupees. 👦

By Atul Verma