Here’s EXACTLY How I’d Start a Million-Dollar Business, with a $25 Start-Up Budget

This week one of my Legends Lab members asked me “Sarah, if you only had $100 and had to start a new business today, what kind of business would you create and how would you do it?”

So – in this post, I’m going to share with you EXACTLY what I’d do to make a brand new business from scratch, with just a $100 budget.

….. and just to prove that you don’t need money to start a business – I’m gonna take my $100 budget down to just $25, AND having it making money in the first 7 days, and banking monthly recurring revenue by day 30.  

This is not theory. 

This is how I’ve built 7-figure businesses of my own.

It’s the strategy I give to my clients to help them reach 7-Figures too. 

Let’s build a business with 25 bucks, baby…….

Step 1: The Business Idea – Create a DIGITAL Online Business

First, it would definitely be a digital business. Why?
Because a digital business lets me:

• Bigger audience – You can reach a global audience instead of just a small local one
• Avoid being tied to one local economy
• Keep my operating costs close to zero
  

I learned this the hard way. 

Years ago, I focused all my energy on in-person training and consulting to corporates in JUST Western Australia.

When state funding for training was cut, I lost all my clients overnight. $2.7 million and 20+ staff GONE, in a single DAY. 

Lesson learned: always have an offer that can be delivered anywhere, anytime, ONLINE.

When COVID came, I grew, instead of halted – because I was online; and was able to GIVE AWAY over $1 million worth of places on my education programs to help those who had lost their work get themselves online.

Step 2: Choose Something You Can Teach (and Love Talking About)

Why teach?  Because humans are ALWAYS gonna wanna learn stuff, and there’s a never ending supply of new humans being born.  Basically its a recession-proof, pandemic-proof market.  AI will definitely change it, but a market demand for personal growth and skill development will never go away because its a fundamental human need. 

I’d look at everything I know, everything I’ve done, and everything that comes naturally to me –  especially the skills I barely even notice anymore because they feel so “normal”.

Those unremarkable things you do all day every day..? They’re your unmined gold. To you they’re just every day automatic. 

To someone else, it’s mastery and they’ll pay to get as good as you at it too.

I’d ensure the skill or knowledge is:

• Something I’ve had life experience and/or results in
  
• Something I’m passionate about
  
• A topic I wouldn’t get bored talking about over and over again
  

Why? Because marketing means repeating yourself over and over. If you’re going to talk about something for years, you’d better enjoy it.

Step 3: Make It a Membership Subscription

The most financially secure businesses have recurring revenue and don’t rely on the yo-yo life of ‘one-time’ sales.
Right now, community-based memberships are outperforming single-purchase courses.

A membership means:

• Monthly income you can count on
  
• Stickiness: A community that your members won’t want to leave
  
• A reason for them to keep paying you
  

The best part about educational memberships is that they don’t have be complicated. Turn up and teach something live at least once a month.

(If you are keen to get a membership up and running, here is my ‘Make Your memberhsip’ workshop that walks you through every single step to planning and launching a membership of your own: https://training.sarahcordiner.com/makeyourmembership )

Step 4: Get a Business Platform That Will Help Me Automate and Scale Fast, From Day 1

I’d grab a 14-day free trial of Tekmatix (https://tekmatix.com/ ) and use their two free onboarding calls, 3 x FREE daily training calls and free training course to:

• Set up my membership portal
• Use one of the free ready made website templates to have my website done in minutes
• Create my waitlist opt-in form for my membership 
• Create a digital booking calendar so that people can instantly start booking paid calls with me
• Create a lead magnet funnel that upsells to a paid call with me and then upsells again to my membership
• Automate my DMs with the Tekmatix AI bot so 
• Schedule all my lead gen and sales social media content using the social media scheduler
• Build a 10-part welcome email sequence that will nurture all of my new incoming contacts and upsell to book a paid call with me and join my membership
• Use one of the free, ready-made ‘Link Page’ templates to create a Link Page for all of my social bios

Because all the templates are already made in Tekmatix, between my free onboarding and the free daily training, I’d expect to have the entire business back-end up and running within 2-3 days – ready to automate my leads, marketing, sales and fulfilment at an unlimited level.

(Get a free trial of Tekmatix here: https://tekmatix.com/ )

Step 4: Saturate Social Media As a Free Leads and Sales Method

I’d set up new accounts on every major social media platform for my new business, brand or personal name.

Then I’d:

1. Use ChatGPT to create 10 helpful posts a DAY about my topic, each with a call-to-action like:
   
   Comment “APPLES” …..  or DM me…. To get my free [lead magnet]
   
   
2. Post everywhere easily using the Tekmatix Social Media Scheduler
   
3. I would also go LIVE via video every day on socials to share a helpful tip in my upcoming membership topic, and promote the membership with an ‘early bird’ deal if they join now.
   
4. Save the live recordings, upload them to YouTube, and use ChatGPT to turn the transcripts into even more posts with CTAs for my free stuff, booking a call with me, and joining my membership.
   

Pro tip: Asking people to comment boosts your reach. Social platforms push engaging content further.  If you have any friends on socials – tag them in your posts (this boosts exposure for both of you).

Step 6: Offer a ‘No-Brainer’ Insane Value ‘Call’ For Limited People

I’d create one irresistible, specific, high-value paid session, such as a 2-hour “get stuff done” session via zoom call, and price it $900–$2,500.  

The ‘value’ would be worth at least 5 times that – so it’ll be a total bargain and a complete no-brainer.  Add real scarcity, eg: “this is going to be my $10,000 session as of x date. As a special one-off launch prize, I am gifting this to JUST 10 people at $xxx”.

(As an example, in my ‘Get it Done’ sessions, I can get your entire membership created and all of the tech set up (including sales page, funnel and automations) within 3-5 hours. from SCRATCH: https://sarahcordiner.com/services)

Then I’d:

• Add the booking link to every post in the comments
  
• Keep driving people from my email list and socials into that special session
  
• I’d get testimonials from EVERYONE of them add add them to the sales pages I’ve created so far, and share them on social media with CTAs to book and how many spaces are left.

I’d expect to get at LEAST 1 booking in the first week alone if I’m posting at least 10 times per day and going live, and adding it to the daily emails going out to my new contact list that’s growing from the lead magnet I created.

Step 7: Borrow Other People’s Audiences

I’d use ChatGPT to find:

• Podcasts my ideal audience listens to
  
• Events and networking groups they attend
  

Then I’d send mass guest pitch emails from my Tekmatix account, offering to speak for free in exchange for:

• Social media promotion that tag and promote me as an expert in x
• Email blasts to their list that promote me and at least my free lead magnet
• Permission to make an offer from the stage 
• A contact list of all the attendees
• Add a Tekmatix QR code on the slide deck that goes to my lead magnet opt in form, so that I can capture the emails of everyone there
  

Every time I speak or guest on a podcast, I’d drive people to my waitlist, my free lead magnet to build my email list further.

Speaking for free is very controversial, but I know that 1 hour of my time is more than paid off for me in new contacts and SALES, because I ensure that I have lead gen and sales strategy embedded in the process.

If you’re a great presenter and deliver incredible content on the free stage – you’ll easily get almost the entire rooms email addresses and at least a 25% conversion rate to sales within the first week of follow-up.  

Step 8: Launch Fast, Lunch Ugly – Tidy It Up Later

A business just needs MONEY. Fast. Stop fluffing about with aesthetics and logos and prettiness in start-up phase, its a dumb diversion from getting income.

I’d set my membership launch date within 7–10 days.  Yes, really. 

If any of you are taking longer than 10 days to launch a membership – you’re wasting time on stupid stuff.  

Perfection is optional. Income is not.

Book a ‘get it done’ session with me and I’ll have your membership set up and launched within 4 HOURS for you: sarahcordiner.com/services

Step 9: Spend My First Dollar!

By now, we are likely to be about 7-10 days in; and I’d expect to have made at LEAST $1,000 by now from my paid appointments, or a special ‘get stuff done’ session booking…

……AND WE HAVN’T EVEN SPENT ONE DOLLAR YET!!!!

So here is the first thing I would now spend my money on….

A domain name in my personal brand name – about $25.
I’d connect it to my Tekmatix account (done for you for free in your free trial period), so that now everything shows in my domain.

No fancy logo. No custom coding. Function, SEO and cash flow, fast.

Step 10: Multiply My Income & Automation System

Let’s keep up the daily content posting with strong CTAs, the speaking and podcasting exposure, start turning my social content into blog posts using the Tekmatix blogging feature.

• Blogging will start getting us saturating search engines and getting referred traffic by AI models too
• I’ll set up an affiliate program for my membership inside Tekmatix affiliate manager, so my first couple of members I should now have, can start promoting it for me for a commission.
• Then I would turn up my sales with more automation: I would turn on the ready-made ‘abandon cart’ automation in Tekmatix to auto-recover all my lost sales from people abandoning the check out
• I’d use the ready-made student check-in sequence to keep my members engaged and retention high.
• I’d turn all of my social posts into further nurture emails with CTAs at the footer

BOOM – this business is pumping baby.

The 30-Day Result

By repeating these steps daily for 30 days, I’d expect to have:

• A few thousand dollars in my bank account
• A few thousand new leads on my email list
• Recurring monthly revenue from my membership that will keep growing as new members join – without having to work ANY harder
• Speaking and podcast bookings, as well as socials, SEO and affiliates bringing me constant exposure, leads and sales 
• A tech system that will keep everything running 24 hours a day, on auto-pilot.
  

And if I got JUST 10 customers on my $10k special package, and 489 members in my membership – I’d hit $1 million in my first year and $880,000 of that would be ANNUAL RECURRING REVENUE.

…..All built from just $25 spent and free trials of Tekmatix.

Boom, baby.

Want to see how Tekmatix can do all this for you?
Start your free trial here and get your entire business system set up in two free onboarding calls.