© by Dunlap Tory Dunlap earns her first $100,000 from Dunlap
- The first $100k founder, Tori Dunlap, started blogging in 2016 with just $40.
- Six years later, his business was generating more than $4 million in annual revenue.
- He shares his tips on how to start a business with little or no money.
Tori Dunlap started her blog in 2016 with just $40. The only cost it offered at the time was a domain name and website registration. Six years later, the financial advisory platform has annual revenue of $4 million.
Dunlap started his blog as a side hustle before making his first $100,000 in 2019. There, he chronicled his progress in saving $100,000 by age 25, sharing tips and building an online audience.
© Courtesy of Dunlap Dunlap is the best-selling author of The Financial Feminist. Thanks to Dunlap Today, Dunlap is in business full time. She has expanded her social media presence to Instagram and TikTok, created a podcast , and is the New York Times bestselling author of The Financial Woman, a book that guides readers through financial planning.
The culmination of those efforts helped Dunlap generate more than $4 million in revenue by 2022, according to documents seen by Insider.
Here are his tips for starting a business with little or no money.
This story is based on an interview with Dunlap. Edited for length and clarity.
Use your skills to fill in the blanks
© By Dunlap Dunlap works online and in person with its first users for $100,000. by Dunlap
As a child, I received a financial education. my parents taught me to save, invest, and not spend on credit cards, and I wanted to share those skills and knowledge with others.
Additionally, my major in corporate communications and over three years of corporate marketing experience at Fortune 500 companies and startups have given me a fundamental understanding of how to organically build a brand.
I combined these skills and interests to fill a gap in financial education.
My friends came to me for financial advice. But when I graduated from university as a woman in 2016, the political and economic situation was very different from what I expected. It made me think about what kind of person I want to be, what career I want to have.
I decided to take control of myself and my money and help others take control of theirs.
Make an offer before you sell
While it's nice to think about the financial benefits of starting a business, it's important to test your ideas before spending a lot of money. That's why my mantra is "Serve before you sell!"
Most people go into business hoping to produce a product and create a community around it. But it rarely works out. Instead, you need to give people value, earn their trust, and then sell them once they're on board.
Branding online or through social media is an inexpensive way to build such an important community.
But it takes a long time to build a following. I got up to 33,000 followers on Instagram by posting every day for two or three years. When I joined TikTok in 2020, my follower count exploded. He now has over 2 million followers and the first $100,000 on TikTok
Create your own business
© by Dunlap Dunlap encourages business owners to be financially savvy. by Dunlap
At first I deliberately did very bad business. I think founders in any industry should hang on until they need to.
One of the reasons I decided to build social media completely organically was because I didn't want to pay for ads or play the guessing game as to which ads were worth it. I think a lot of business owners don't advertise very quickly because it's easy to see investing in something as a solution. For my first $100,000, I once spent $20 on Facebook ads. Everything else was organic.
Organic and strategic growth led to business expansion into new outlets.
After creating a blog and an Instagram account, I moved to TikTok like I would any other market. We invested in launching our podcast in 2021 because Tik Tok viewers are looking for more unique content than a 60-second video. And as a universal business, the next step was a physical expression of our work: a book.
You should find a cheap MVP and test it and then iterate. For me, this MVP was my blog and it allowed me to invest in more projects based on the needs of our community.
