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What is the cheapest anyone has been able to get a Start-Up from idea to full-time employment?

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The cost of a lottery ticket :-)

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The reality (in my opinion) is that the question does not necessarily make sense. If you follow Customer Development methodologies you could get a check on before you decide to start the company (ofcourse it will likely come with strings attached). – Vineet Nov 3 '09 at 19:19
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If I had to break it down:

  • About 3 weeks of eventing and weekend work.
  • A $9 domain name
  • A $25 SSL Certificate
  • A $49 setup fee at a payment processor
  • $300 transfer of money to a new bank account
  • $150 per month dedicated server

After that, I leveraged my current network of business associates, offered "workshops" around my city and signed up enough people locally to make it self-sustaining and profitable enough to pay myself each month.

Because I already had another business this was a service of, the LLC was taken care of, I was already paying an accountant, I already had the computers, software, etc, to make it all happen, taxes were being paid... But if you have to buy all that stuff, you're probably looking at a couple thousand more.

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Nice one Ben. Thanks for summarizing it. – jpartogi Nov 4 '09 at 11:14
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I think the costs of startup can be devided into 2 broad groups. 1) amount of money to bring the idea into reality. 2) amount of your time to bring the idea into reality.

with internet startups the 1) can be within $100.00 if you do all the programming, marketing and run a 1 man show. This in turn requires a lot of your time which makes 2) really high.

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It's a principle I've lived with for years - in the same way that Einstein linked mass and Energy, time really does equal money...but the conversion rate isn't always the same! – Alistair Collins Nov 9 '09 at 9:05

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