How I started my fashion business with a tiny budget | Start a fashion brand on a small budget — The Fashion Business Coach (2024)

Over the years, many people have asked me how to start a fashion business with no money. There's several things that set me apart from other fashion business consultants, one of which is the theory behind your budget. You've probably heard people say that you need £20k to start a fashion business and the truth is, you really don't have to spend tens of thousands. How can I be so sure? Because I didn't. Sure, I didn't experience massive sales at the start, or overnight success, but I did create a business that could eventually support me full time, with happy customers andstockists worldwide. And I achieved it with just £150 (around $190US) from my part time job.

Now, at this point you're probably thinking, 'but you have a fashion industry background, so you could probably do loads of it yourself without spending any money' and while yes, that is true, there's still ways to make a start with a minimal budget and no experience. I’ve had clients who have been able to launch for hundreds, not thousands. Also, everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. Yes, I could make samples myself, but I didn't know the first thing about social media strategy or writing product descriptions when I started out, which many others can do themselves easily. This post explores some of the ways you can make a start on your business without having a lot of money in the bank.

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How I started my business and how you can too

If you're on a small budget, your strategy is of course very different to those with more cash. Any ideas of factory production, glossy lookbooks or fashion shows have to go on hold for now. By starting small, you can minimise the financial risk (which is of course great), but do keep in mind that it will require a lot more effort on your part (and starting a business is already hard) and progress will be much slower in general, so don't have any ideas of quitting your day job anytime soon.

Here's some of the methods that I used to start my fashion business with very little cash, which you can use too;

• Use my signature VSP Launch model (Validate - Sell - Produce, so you don't have to buy stock in advance)

• Learn as much as you can, particularly about free types of advertising (including social media), website building and sewing/fabrics - there's a lot you can learn on my website for free. There’s even a free ebook on starting a brand on a budget which you can get here.

• Don't be tempted to spend a fortune on a website, fancy computer or software, to begin with you can get by with the basics if you have to

• Start small, with a limited number of options; I started with 2 styles

• Enlist the help of willing friends and family; more often than not they want to see you succeed and are more than happy to help. For example, I borrowed a camera from my Dad (in the days when camera phones were awful - nowadays a smartphone can do the job and chances are you have one already!), a friend helped me with writing descriptions (not my strong suit) and a group of friends helped me to refine design ideas.

• Collaborate, this one was especially helpful; I worked with other people who also wanted to start a business and had a similar style to me, but a different offering. For example, I worked with models, photographers and make up artists - we all worked for free, but in exchange were getting professional quality work (I provided the products for the photoshoot) that we could use on our social media and websites. Also, we linked to each other online, to get exposure to a new audience, that had similar interests to our businesses.

The importance of planning

As with all types of business, planning is key and in this case it's especially important to make sure you know where you want to take the business and what you want to achieve so that you don't waste money on things that aren't essential. We’re starting a fashion brand on a budget, remember, so we need to make every penny count!

It'll also help you to reinvest wisely, so that you can grow your business effectively. Key things you'll want to decide on in advance are;

• How do I want to grow my brand? For example, will you spend your time growing your Instagram following, working on getting press features, maybe you want to get your products into boutiques?

• Do I want to have exclusive designs, or would I be happy customising existing styles with my own prints (this is an especially good option for anyone wanting to start with t-shirts, sweatshirts, activewear and other casual products, but it can work for other products too - learn about this method in my free ebook)

• Do you specifically want to start with clothing? Accessories can often be a much easier way of starting, as you don't have to consider the fit and one size fits all in many cases, so you don't have to worry about picking a size range. The number of returns are often less as well, because people won't return due to the item not fitting, or not suiting them.

• I recommend being specific with your offering to any startup, but especially to ones with a limited budget. Don't try to offer lots of options on everything, as you'll need at the very least a photography sample made for everything and the more items you have, the more you’ll need.

Scaling up

When you've made your first few sales, you can then look at reinvesting the money you've made on that. Ideally, if you're able to support yourself with a full or part time job, it's best to invest most of the money you make, so that you can speed up your growth (keep some in the bank for any unexpected expenses though). Listening to customer feedback is really important and this can cover everything from actual comments that you've received, but also things like social media comments or, the most important one of all, the sales data. Look at what your most popular size, colour, style, etc have been and use this when making choices for new products.

I hope this post has been able to reassure you that anyone can start a fashion label, no matter what your budget is, as long as you're willing to put in the work! If you found this helpful, make sure that you get my free ebook on starting a fashion business from scratch, even with a tiny budget and in just 2 weeks, which has even more tips for success;