How To Pay Bills & Start A Business – 5 Entrepreneurs Share Their Secrets

At some point in our lives, we have all contemplated over quitting our boring jobs and start something on our own. But in most cases, this ends up being merely a dream. That’s because not all of us can afford the luxury of going without pay for the first few months of starting up. So how do the successful entrepreneurs do it? In the book, “How We Did It – 100 entrepreneurs share the stories of their struggles and life experiences”, the author talks to over 100 entrepreneurs on the various challenges and struggles of starting up. Here are snippets from five of these entrepreneurs explaining how they managed to pay their monthly bills during those initial days.

Chandler Crouch (From Chandler Crouch realtors)
“I intentionally reduced my living expenses as much as possible by making a lot of hard decisions and sacrificing pleasantries. It also helps that I didn’t have a wife or kids. Starting out I worked at a restaurant as a waiter. This helped because I could take home a lot of free food.”

Dan DeLuca (From ClassChatter.com, a blended learning tool service)
“I built my site specifically to have low overhead. If I could not pay the bills out my pocket I would shut down a long time ago. I also took donations. This did not bring in a lot of money, but was a huge motivator. If people were willing to donate a few dollars then I must have been on to something. This lack of revenue was a blessing and a curse. It certainly kept me from exploring certain opportunities, but it made me focus on my niche.”

John Brady (From Protem Partners, a management consulting company)
“Savings and my spouse’s income. We also had to curtail our standard of living significantly. We examined every dollar that went out in any given month. It’s amazing what you can cut out when you need to. It was especially difficult to live within different means later in life; feeling like we were just starting out all over again. And once we made the first cut, we went through and cut again.”

Michael Kawula (From Self Employed King, the owner of million dollar franchising and dropshipping businesses)
“My first franchise I started I did part-time until my business was up and running profitably. I worked 7 days a week and 18 hour days to be able to breakaway from the paycheck that I was so Addicted to. I had my first child on the way and didn’t want to make the leap without a little cushion.

When I bought my next Franchise I created a C-Corporation and took part of my 401K to buy stock in my newly formed corporation. This gave me a cushion while I built up the business and ultimately helped me outperform what my 401k could have done alone by investing in myself.”

Jordan Eisenberg (From UrgentRx, an over-the-counter powder medications)
“Simple answer: expense reduction. I stopped eating out, cut back on all unnecessary expenses, and went into “financial kernel mode” where I could live largely off of savings and minimize my personal burn rate. Not fun, and it doesn’t last forever, but if it were easy to start a business and didn’t require considerable sacrifices, everyone would do it.”