Assalamualaikum

Why bootstrap? You have to bootstrap if you have little amount of money to start a business. I’ll be honest with you that bootstrapping is not glamorous, it doesn’t feel nice, it’s very tough and worse, there’s a big chance to fail. You might break. You can imagine being Rambo while you’re bootstrapping. But to the contrary, it is less risk and the best way to start learning how deep the rabbit hole will go in business.

Some business training consultants claimed that they could teach you how to bootstrap even without money at all. For me, that is nonsense since you have to pay them RM4000++ to learn how to bootstrap without money at all. Not to forget the cost for your petrol or air plain ticket to go to their training centers.

Save the money and start bootstrapping with Rambo’s spirit now!

Rambo a.k.a. Alif

1) SET UP A LEGAL BUSINESS

There is a clear line between a business entity and a company, although most people regard all kinds of business are the same as companies. In Malaysia, the simplest form of a business entity is a sole proprietorship or a partnership entity. It’s easy to recognize them. Those business without the ‘Sdn Bhd’ or ‘Bhd’ behind their companies’ names, they are either sole proprietorship or partnership. Those with ‘Sdn Bhd’ or ‘Bhd’, they are the so called ‘companies’. A sole proprietorship or a partnership has no such thing as ‘number of shares’, declaration of ‘paid up capital’ and ‘authorized capital’, M&A, Form 24, Form 49, etc. They are very simple entities.

Unless you want to open up a small ad-hoc pisang goreng stall or selling on e-Bay, you must operate your business using a legal entity. The main reason is to build trust among your prospects. If you don’t operate your business under a legal business entity, then usually you’ll be regarded as a freelancer or a typical sales man. I am not being a stereotype assuming that all freelancers always cheat and do not provide good support service. But in Malaysia, people don’t trust you much if you do a business not using a legal entity. Even though it’s just a typical online e-book store, you’ll have more credibility if you show them you have a business entity.

Moreover, the total cost to register a sole proprietorship is just RM80. You can go to The Mall shopping centre at level 2 to register them with Companies Commission of Malaysia. Everything can be done around 2 hours time.

Advantages of a Sole Proprietorship:

• As a sole proprietor, you have absolute freedom in decision making.
• All profits will be your personal property.
• No reports of accounts are required.
• You only need to pay personal income tax and not business tax.
• If you have a legal business entity, you can join lots of exhibitions such as Gerak Usahawan Nasional to market your services or products. At exhibitions like that, you can learn a lot about other kinds of business.

I had my sole proprietor when I started my business more than 3 years back. The name was Silver Ridge Enterprise, a name given by my father. A lot of people confused my business with Silver Ridge Holdings Bhd, one of the public listed companies in Malaysia. I thought it was quite good to create some buzz, huh?

Disadvantages of Sole Proprietorship:

It’s obvious that you are small. People look at you like they are looking at a small ant. Sometimes they will even laugh at you. But, so what? Admit that you are small. You have to start somewhere, right?

Dream big! But be willing to start small. Michael Dell started his business with just around 1K in hand from his dorm room.

2) CREATE YOUR BUSINESS ACCOUNT

This might sound simple to grab but believe me, there are bootstrappers out there using their personal saving or current account for their business transactions. Please! This is Malaysia. How do you think your prospects are going to trust you if your letter head, invoice, etc are using your business name but all payments must be made to your personal account? People might judge that your business doesn’t even exist at all and you’re just playing words with them.

If you go to Maybank, the cost is RM2000 to create a business account. If you go to CIMB, it’s just RM1000. If you go to Al-Rajhi, it’s RM500. Those figures might seem big for bootstrappers to start but don’t worry so much. You can take it out back once you have the check book in hand and leave the balance to be RM50 to keep your account active.

3) HAVE AN OFFICE

First, have a SOHO; Small Office Home Office. Unless you’ve closed some adequate amount of sales, don’t invest even in renting a small room for your office. It’s not the time yet. Don’t invest on unnecessary things. My first office was at the store of my parent’s house. There was an old pc that I’ve been using since my undergraduate days and a second hand black/white laser jet printer that I bought for RM250.

There are people who do not even have a pc when they started their business. They visit the cyber cafes often for typing, printing, scanning, emailing and surfing the internet. Maybe one can say that the cyber cafes are their offices. (By the way, a cyber cafe near my house is giving 50 cents discount for girls ONLY. For guys, the charge is RM2 per hour. Diskriminasi terhadap kaum lelaki betul kan? Huh! Bak kata Tan Sri P. Ramlee,”INI TIDAK ADIL!!” )

Then, once you have more budgets, start renting a small room in somebody’s office. There are always people who have underutilized space(s) in their office. Usually, they are willing to sublet to others to help them reduce their monthly overhead. To be safe, sublet from your friend. If everything goes chaos and totally opposite from your ‘perfect planning’, at least you can negotiate with them for some leniency on the renting. Be honest. Usually, your friends can tolerate. But don’t take their kindness for granted, ok?

In Malaysia, it is vital to have a real office instead of SOHO, no matter how small it is. Even if it just big enough to fit one desktop and a printer, its better than your SOHO. This is due to the mindset of Malaysians. If your house is your office, most people somehow will presume that, “You’re not making it” or “He’s not a serious businessman”. You can imagine what’s the effect will be. I know how it feels. So, don’t stay long in your house, alright? Work hard and start renting a small office room.

Now, what if you’re initiating a really big project (big = millions or billions) and you have no choice but to portray to the parties involved that ‘you’ve made it’ when actually, you’re still bootstrapping and are having modest income just to support yourself? I know just the right solution for that. Check Regus. A Regus Virtual Office gives you an enhanced business image, complete flexibility and support without the overhead:

• A great address - choose from 1000 locations worldwide. i.e. Central Plaza at Jalan Sultan Ismail
• Your mail forwarded or saved for you to collect
• A local telephone number with scripted call answering, screening and forwarding
• Your messages passed on by phone, SMS, email or via secure online portal
• On-site admin support, for everything from photocopying to travel bookings
• All the benefits of a full-service office without the overhead

You can get all these with the cost of USD99 per month. Good deal, huh? Maybe they will think that you’re a multi-million dollar company. But the real story? Haha…shhhhh… Keep it quite!

4) WHAT ABOUT TELEPHONE AND FAX?

Communication is very important in business. You must make yourself easy to be reached. That will build your reputation as well as creating more business opportunities.

Now, make a deal with a friend whose business is more established than yours. Use their numbers (phone and fax numbers) on your business cards. Your friend must also has a loose phone ethics so that when people call in to search for you, there shouldn’t be any greeting like, “Hello, Aidan Corporation Sdn Bhd. May I help you?” Instead, if your business is Silver Ridge Enterprise, when people call your office (your friend’s office actually), they would be expecting, “Hello, Silver Ridge Enterprise. May I help you?” Or at least a normal greet, “Hello, may I help you?” Not Aidan Corporation or names of other companies.

What will happen next? People will ask for you, right? Well, what your friend should do is to say, “Oh, Mr. Rambo (a.k.a. Alif) is outside right now. Can you please call his mobile number?” Just tell your friend to give them your mobile number if they don’t have any and…voila!

Worse, if you can’t find a friend who’s willing to help you, get your own fixed line somewhere and use the redirect service from TM. The cost for the redirect service is just RM1.50 per month. With this feature, every time someone calls your fixed line number, the system will automatically redirect the call to your pre-assigned number. i.e. your mobile number. You’re safer then, at least.

Now, since you’re not always available to go to your friend’s office to use the fax machine, use eFax then. Send and receive faxes via email. Meaning, you don’t need a telephone line or a fax machine at all. As long as you have an internet connection and top up some credit, you’re ready to go. The cost is just USD0.10 per page. Seriously, it’s worth your time and very convenient too.

5) BE MOBILE

Seriously speaking. If you don’t like to mobile, than don’t do business. Since the primary job of a business owner is to sell, you have no choice but to mobile a lot. Even if you like to venture into online business, you still have to mobile. Maybe not much, but you still have to.

Now, I understand that doing business single handed will give you no choice but to do the administrative jobs, typing and printing the proposals, the quotations, invoices and receipts ALL by yourself. Not to forget the cold callings, faxing, email marketing, direct mail marketing, the brochures and leaflets, the meetings, etc. When you’re outside, there are always urgent matters that need you to produce some documents at an instant. You don’t have all the time and petrol money for you to go to and fro to your office just to print a single page of invoice, don’t you?

Don’t worry. Find some money and buy a high end ACER laptop (ACER might not be a good quality brand but it’s enough for you to start) at Imbi or Law Yat Plaza that will cost you around RM1400 and a Canon printer that is less than RM200. After that, bring them inside your car. Next, buy this cool travel adapter which will cost you RM50 only and plug it into the DC socket of your car.

The next thing you know (as Khairul suggests), you can even have a small fridge inside your Kancil! Huhu… Cool huh?

I know this entry is very long. Go take a break if you need so. Then, lets continue for the 2nd half.