Lean Startaup: How to start an online business with $0

One of the most intresting topics that I have been following is the ability to be able to make money while spending as little as possible, and by little I mean $0. So I've done quite a bit of research, searching for any method that can allow you to produce and promote something using the power of the internet and social media without spending a penny. There are tools and methods that I'll introduce you to that'll help you achieve this goal with ease.

Roadmap:

Level I: Promoting using YIT (YouTube, Instagram, TikTok)
Level II: Building a MVP landing page
Level III: Pre-saling and gathering information
Level IV: Development & scailing

Each of these levels has their own tools which you need to learn and study to be able to perform this lean approach appropriately. Though I need to confess the method I'm going to show you isn't 100% free. You need to have a computer and internet connection to be able to follow these steps. But I'm sure you already have these two things, so let's get started (if not there are a lot of cheap options that you can look for to get started. ThinkPad Laptops are a great choice. Search for them).

Level I: Promoting using YIT (YouTube, Instagram, TikTok)

Tools:

TikTok
Blender
Instagram
Unreal Engine
YouTube Shorts

This might sound a little wierd. How can I promote something without even having the product yet? There are multiple answers to this question. First of all, we don't want to try to sell something that we don't know if people are going to buy or not. That's called risk. We can't afford that when trying to make money with 0 at the bank. So we can do one of these instead:

Find an content (image & video) of the product you want to sell on the internet and post them on social media
Create a 3D render of the products using blender or unreal engine and share them on social media
Digital Prodcuts mostly don't have any costs. Courses, Videos, Music, Renders, Drawings, Templates, Code, Software, Websites, E-books, Video Games, Platforms, Podcast, and these types of products are free to make.

If you already have a product in mind that you want to sell you can go with the first approach, but if you're Looking to manufacture and sell a more unique product that others don't have which eliminates the competition, you can go with the second approach (recommended). This way you're not spending any money on the product itself, but you're still able to promote it and see if people are interested in it or not. If you can't go with the render option because of the cheap computer you have, try with the first option at the beggining.

Remember the more niche the industry you're getting into, the eaiser you can attract the audience that are looking for the solution you have for their specific needs.

Then when you have the content ready, you can start promoting it on social media. TikTok, Instagram and YouTube are the best platforms to promote your product. Of course there are more ways to promote your products like posting on reddit, facebook, twitter, etc. But these three platforms have the power of virality, and will help you reach a larger audience with in a shorter amount of time (this is important in this approach as lean startups should be flexible and nimble). The content should mostly be vertical short-form videos which are engaging and are using trending audio. This'll help you to have a viral content.

Now what we need is a place to send our audience to so that we can gauge their interest in the product. Remember pure interest isn't what we're looking for. After all interest isn't what's going to pay the bills, so by interest here I mean 'money'. This is where the MVP landing page comes in.

Level II: Building a MVP landing page

Tools:

Vercel
ShadCN
Express
MongoDB
MagicUI
Node.js
SvelteKit
WordPress
TailWindCSS
Svelte Lucide

After we got some attention from the social media platforms, a website would be the next place to send our audience to. Now there are two ways that I like to build a website in a extremly short amount of time. The first one is using WordPress. Although setting up a WordPress is very easy and fast, it's not the best option for a lean startup (at least for the $0 challange we've set here). You'll need to pay for the hosting and plugins which can add up over time and you'll need to spend time to learn how to use them (not to mention they break all the time). But if you're willing to spend a few bucks and save some time you can go with WordPress.

The second and the best option is to use SvelteKit and Vercel. SvelteKit is a new framework that allows you to build websites and web applications very fast and easily. It's very easy to learn and use. Please don't be overwhelmed by the word 'framework'. It's just a tool that helps you to build websites. Even if you're a beggininer at programming learning SvelteKit will be extremly easy as it's very similar to how vanilla JavaScript, HTML, CSS websites are built. Not to mention learning this framework will grant you the superpower to build websites and start your own business anytime you want (I'll later introduce you to 12 Months Challange in which you'll start a business each month using this strategy and then fully automate it by systemizing so that it's going to generate money like a money printing machine without you working on it).

Vercel is an awesome hosting platform that helps you host and update your website using git which makes the process very fast and easy. It's the perfect option for those who want to to test an idea with the free tier and scale only when the money is coming in. There are other options out there but as of writing this article Vercel is the best option for this approach.

We're also going to use Node.js and Express to build the backend of the website. Using these tools we can make APIs that we'll help us fetch and store data into our database.

Lucide Svelte is my favorite icon library that I use in all of my projects. It's very easy to use and has a lot of icons that you can use in your projects.

TailwindCSS, MagicUI, and ShadCN are the CSS libraries that we're going to use to style our website. These are component-based libraries that make the process of developing the style of the website extremly fast and easy. These can help you to develop responsive websites that would take days to develop in just a few hours.

Finally you can use MongoDB to store the data that you gather from the landing page. This way you can see how many people are interested in the product and how many of them are willing to pay for it. This database is the most flexible and easy to use database out there. Very simple to setup and learn. Try to also use MongoDB Atlas free-tier to host your database on cloud for free.

Now that we have our website ready it's time to gather some information about our customers and see if we can even pre-fund ourselves by pre-selling the product we're going to sell.

Level III: Pre-saling and gathering information

Tools:

Mailchimp
SMS Providers

In this step we're going to gather some data about our customres and learn more about them and industry that we're getting into. Some of the useful information we can gather are: Age of the customers, gender of the customer, their email, their number, their name and family name, address of the customers, their interest in parchasing the product, how much they're willing to pay for the product, etc. Becareful though not to ask too many personal questions and also make the ones that might be sensetive to some optional. This way we can ensure we can initiate a follow-up or notify the customers when the product is ready. Put as many information as you can about the product and the the time it'll take for them to recieve it (also put some room for errors as you're going to start the process of manufacturing after you've got enough sales). This data can later help us learn what types of products and trends we're going to look for after our initial lunch and also help us to understand our customers better.

Make sure to send follow-up emails after if they signed up for your newsletter. Don't just talk about the product you pre-saled or wait-listed them. Talk about useful information about the industry on general and why you even decided to start selling this prodcut in the first place. Try to build a relationship with the customer even before delivering what you promised. This helps building trust and loyalty with the customers for the future.

Level IV: Development & scailing

Tools:

Branding
Automations
Advertisements
Digital Marketing
Influencer Marketing
Social Media Presence
Exhibitions & Tradeshows
React Native, React, Next.js
Exporting to other countries
Delegation, Hiring, Outsourcing

If you've followed through correctly you should know have: promoted your product without spending any money on the product itself, built a website where audience were directed to, gathered information about the customers and pre-saled the product. Now it's time to develop the product and scale it. For most of the previous steps you need to have a deadline to accomplish them. I recommend spending at least 1 week for each of the previous steps. This one however could be a life-long journey of improving and expanding the business to your liking. There's no end to it. Since there are lots of concept and strategies that are existant in this step, I'm just going to talk briefly about them in this article. I'll make more dedicated blogs about them in the future.

At this stage you need to start developing your product. For a physical one this could mean 3D printing a prototype, or use machines like CNC laser cutters, or drilling CNC machines to design a MVP. The key here is to use other's experties and tools instead of buying them yourself. Learning to use these machines and manufacturing methods can take years, but with smart descitions and use of other's experties you can get the product ready in a few days. For a digital product this could mean developing beta version of the software, website, or app that you're going to sell. This could take a few days to a few weeks depending on the complexity of the product.

And now you're officialy in the biz. Congrats. From here it's going to be more about the marketing and scaling the business. The most important principle in this stage is to systemize the business. This means to automate as much as possible and delegate the rest. This way you can focus on aspects that will make you're business immortal. Like branding, marketing, and customer service. Basically building reputation and trust by building a specific image in customers mind. It's very important to decide how you want your business to be presented to your customers. The character of your brand is going to be the thing that will differentiate you from your competitors. From colors, to fonts, to the way you talk to your customers, to the influencers you work with, the way you write your copy in emails and website, the way you design your website, the way you design your product, the content of your social media or advertisements, all of them matter. You should pay attention to every detail and make sure they're all aligned with image you want to present to your customers.

Also automation should always be in your mind. You should always think about how you can automate the repetetive process of your business. This way you can save time (which is saving costs since time is the biggest asset of any company) and focus on the things that matter most. This could mean automating the processes for you're employees, or automating the process of marketing, or automating the process of customer service, etc. Automation along with efficiency (meaning doing the right things and avoiding the time-wester) while maintaining effectiveness (meaning doing the in the best way possible) would let you far. Also always expand by diversifying your providers, sources, manufacturers, distributors, etc. This way you can avoid risks and be more flexible.

Show your brand anywhere you can. On the streets, in seminars, on social media, in the TV, in stadiums, in the sky, in the sea, in the space, anywhere you can. Be a part of your customers life. Do influencer marketing. That makes your brand more trustworthy and popular. Run ads on Google Ads, YouTube Ads, TikTok Ads, Instagram Ads, Facebook Ads, X/Twitter Ads, and any platform that has that 'Ads' in their name. Also write guests blogs for other webites, do podcasts, do interviews, do exhibitions, do tradeshows, do anything that can make your brand more popular. Don't forget about banners on third-party websites, and email marketing. These are the most effective ways to reach your customers. By doing these and providing exceptional product and services you'll also benefit from mouth-to-mouth marketing which is the most effective way of getting loyal customers from their first order. The problem about business is that there are endless options. I wish there was a book or source that could compress all the knowledge in one place, but unfortunately that's impossible. So just try to brainstorm ways in which you can get some eyeballs and showcase your USP (unique selling point) as succinct and fast as you can.

Lastly please don't make a jail for yourself. You could easily make this a annoying job for yourself which'll eventually lead to burnout. So make sure you try your best to hire, delegate, and outsource whenever you can. Remember there are always people that are better than you in every processes of the business You can't do Shadow Clone Jutsu, so just try to find the best talents and delegate the tasks as soon as possible so that you can furthur focus on the expantion and new innovations in the business (products, marketing strategies, services, ...). Search for freelancers and experts who can increase the quality and save you time.

Summary

Additional Tools:

Claude
ChatGPT
DeepSeek
ElevenLabs
LeonardoAI

So this is basically a guide to starting a business with $0 investment in 2025. I hope you found this article useful and informative. Obviously there are thousands of other methods and ways to make money with no initial investment. Most popular ones are dropshipping, affiliate marketing, referral marketing, starting a YouTube channel, starting a blog, etc. But I wanted to introduce you to a new method that I've been following that can be scailable, automatable, and generate money for you while you're sleeping. I've also included some AI tools that you can use in different steps of the process. For exmaple if you want to create content for a digital product you created and want to promote it on social media you can use ChatGPT to generate content for you, ElevenLabs to generate the voice for you and LeonardoAI to generate the video for you. These tools can help you to automate the process of creating content for your product. Not only that but you can use these along with other tools like Zapier, or even custom-solutions (if you're comfortable with coding) to automate almost every step of the process. We're at the beginning of a new revolution. The emergence of AI and automation is going to change the way we do business and make money. You'd better adapt and learn these tools and methods to be able to compete in the future. Welcome to the biz.