How to Start a Business From Zero

Courses in this academy

Academy lesson outline

1. Why Most People Never Start · 10 min
2. The Entrepreneur vs. The Employee Mindset · 10 min
3. Fear, Risk, and the Courage to Begin · 10 min
4. What Business Actually Is · 10 min
5. Your First Business Is Not Your Last · 10 min
6. The Problem With "Waiting Until You're Ready" · 10 min
7. How Successful Entrepreneurs Really Think · 10 min
8. Building Your Personal Success Definition · 10 min
9. The Long Game — Patience, Resilience, and Grit · 10 min
10. Your Business Is a Reflection of You · 10 min
11. Where Business Ideas Really Come From · 10 min
12. Your Skills, Interests, and Market Demand · 10 min
13. The Problem-First Business Approach · 10 min
14. Evaluating Business Ideas Before You Start · 10 min
15. Copying vs. Innovating — What's Legal and Smart · 10 min
16. Niche Down to Win Big · 10 min
17. Business Ideas With Low Startup Cost · 10 min
18. The Validation Framework — How to Know If Your Idea Will Sell · 10 min
19. From Idea to Concept — Writing Your First Business Concept · 10 min
20. Choosing Between Multiple Ideas · 10 min
21. Why Most Businesses Fail to Understand Their Customer · 10 min
22. Defining Your Ideal Customer — The Customer Avatar · 10 min
23. Customer Pain Points vs. Customer Desires · 10 min
24. How to Conduct a Customer Interview · 10 min
25. Listening for the Words Customers Use · 10 min
26. Segmenting Your Market · 10 min
27. What Customers Actually Buy · 10 min
28. Building Your First Customer Persona · 10 min
29. Mapping the Customer Journey · 10 min
30. Staying Connected to Your Customer as You Grow · 10 min
31. What Is an Offer? · 10 min
32. Solving One Problem Extremely Well · 10 min
33. Productising a Service · 10 min
34. Pricing Your Offer — The Psychology and Logic of Pricing · 10 min
35. Free vs. Paid — When to Give Value and When to Charge · 10 min
36. Creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) · 10 min
37. Testing Your Offer With Real People · 10 min
38. Refining Your Offer Based on Feedback · 10 min
39. Packaging, Presentation, and First Impressions · 10 min
40. Building Your Signature Offer · 10 min
41. Do You Actually Need to Register Your Business? · 10 min
42. Business Structures Explained · 10 min
43. Registering a Business in Nigeria — Step by Step · 10 min
44. Opening a Business Bank Account · 10 min
45. Business Naming — Rules, Research, and Registration · 10 min
46. Tax Basics for New Business Owners in Nigeria · 10 min
47. Creating a Simple Business Policy · 10 min
48. Intellectual Property Basics — Protecting Your Brand and Ideas · 10 min
49. Building a Simple Business Operations Manual · 10 min
50. Setting Up Your Digital Business Presence Checklist · 10 min
51. Bootstrapping — Starting With What You Have · 10 min
52. Personal Savings — Using Your Own Money Wisely · 10 min
53. Friends, Family, and Community Funding · 10 min
54. Microfinance and Government Loan Programmes in Nigeria · 10 min
55. Grants — Free Money That Is Not Free · 10 min
56. Angel Investors and What They Are Actually Looking For · 10 min
57. Crowdfunding — Raising Capital From Many People · 10 min
58. Revenue-Based Funding and Creative Financing · 10 min
59. Managing Cash Flow — The Lifeblood of Your Business · 10 min
60. Building a Funding Strategy That Fits Your Business · 10 min
61. Marketing Without a Budget — Getting Your First Customers · 10 min
62. Understanding Your Target Customer Deeply · 10 min
63. Social Media Marketing That Actually Converts · 10 min
64. Email and WhatsApp Marketing for Small Businesses · 10 min
65. Content Marketing — Teaching Your Way to Customers · 10 min
66. Word of Mouth — Engineering Your Referral System · 10 min
67. Paid Advertising — When and How to Start · 10 min
68. Building a Simple Marketing System · 10 min
69. Local Marketing — Reaching Your Community · 10 min
70. Measuring What Matters — Marketing Metrics for New Businesses · 10 min
71. The Psychology of First Sales · 10 min
72. Finding Your First Paying Customer · 10 min
73. Sales Conversations Without Sounding Desperate · 10 min
74. Handling Objections, Rejection, and Price Resistance · 10 min
75. Closing the Sale and Following Up Professionally · 10 min
76. Building Repeat Business and Customer Loyalty · 10 min
77. Creating an Irresistible First Customer Experience · 10 min
78. Proposals and Quotations That Win Business · 10 min
79. Getting Paid — Invoicing, Payment, and Collection · 10 min
80. Turning Sales Into Systems · 10 min
81. Time Management for Business Owners · 10 min
82. Hiring Your First Person · 10 min
83. Managing Money — Basic Financial Management for Business Owners · 10 min
84. Customer Service That Builds Your Reputation · 10 min
85. Setting Prices for Growth — When and How to Raise Your Prices · 10 min
86. Scaling — Growing Beyond Yourself · 10 min
87. Managing Business Risk · 10 min
88. Building a Team Culture in a Small Business · 10 min
89. Staying Motivated Through Difficulty · 10 min
90. Planning Your Next Phase of Growth · 10 min
91. The Long Game — Building for Sustainability, Not Just Survival · 10 min
92. Creating Multiple Streams of Income in Your Business · 10 min
93. Building a Personal Brand That Outlasts Your Business · 10 min
94. Building Business Relationships That Last · 10 min
95. Giving Back — Business as a Force for Good · 10 min
96. Handling Business Failure and Learning From It · 10 min
97. The Exit — When and How to Plan for What Comes After · 10 min
98. Continuous Learning — The Competitive Advantage That Never Expires · 10 min
99. Writing Your Business Story — The Vision That Pulls You Forward · 10 min
100. What Comes After — The Business That Transforms Lives · 10 min

How to get started

1. Create your Learn & Grow account or sign in.
2. Review the available access plans and choose the academy you need.
3. Work through the lessons and activities in your learning dashboard.

Contact support if you need help choosing the right learning path.