How to start a startup with no money: what works in 2026

The honest answer first: you can start a startup with no money, but not with no cost. You pay in evenings, weekends and a lot of slightly awkward conversations. Cash comes later, ideally from customers rather than from your savings.

This guide covers what works when your budget is close to zero: keeping your income, selling before you build, starting with a service, free tools, and competitions and grants that don’t ask for shares. Then the part most guides skip, line by line: what it costs to open an SRL or an SRLS in Italy in 2026. On our beginner’s map from zero to first round, this sits at the idea stage.

Can you really start a startup with no money?

Yes. It’s called bootstrapping: you build the company with your own resources and your customers’ money instead of an investor’s. Slower, yes. But you keep all your equity, the ownership of the company, for the day it’s worth more.

Stay put. It sounds dull, but the job or the degree is your income while the idea is still a guess. Work on it in the evenings and at weekends, and hand in your notice only when the numbers say you can afford to. We explain how to read those numbers in when to quit your job for a startup. Until then your salary is paying for the experiment.

If you validated your startup idea in the last step, you already have two things money can’t buy at this stage. One is a set of notes from real conversations. The other is a list of people waiting for you.

Sell before you build: pre-sales and letters of intent

The best investor for a company with no money is a customer. A pre-sale is exactly that. Someone pays now, in full or as a deposit, for something you’ll deliver later. Demand gets proven and the work gets funded in a single move.

If you sell to businesses, the lighter version is a letter of intent: a short signed letter in which a company says it intends to buy your product, at roughly what price, once it does what’s described. It isn’t a purchase order. Still, three letters from real companies beat fifty “sounds interesting” emails, both for your own decisions and for anyone you pitch later.

Here’s an invented example. Say Chiara is a developer in Turin who wants to build booking software for physiotherapy practices. She keeps her job. In a month she visits 15 practices. Three of them agree to pay €290 for the first year, at launch, instead of the €490 list price, provided the software handles cancellations over WhatsApp. Before taking a cent, she asks an accountant how to invoice it. That’s €870 and three committed customers before a line of code.

Start with a service, then turn it into a product

Another way to fund the first months is to do the job by hand. Chiara could configure each practice’s booking system for a fee and automate whatever she catches herself repeating. A service pays from week one and shows you which features people really use.

Some well-known software companies began this way. Mailchimp is the one everybody quotes. Ben Chestnut and Dan Kurzius ran a web design agency called the Rocket Science Group, and in 2001 they started Mailchimp as a side project. By 2021 Intuit had agreed to pay about $12 billion for it, in cash and stock. Your numbers will be smaller, but the sequence is the same: service first, product later.

The risk is getting comfortable. The invoices keep arriving, years pass, and the so-called startup turns out to be an agency. So fix the limit now, a date or a revenue figure, and when you reach it, custom work stops and the product starts. Our guide to building an MVP without coding shows how to start small.

Free tools, competitions and grants that don’t take equity

Software can stay close to free for months: the free form builders and payment links from the validation plan cover a landing page, a waitlist and the first deposits. Spend money only when a free plan really blocks you.

Then there are competitions. In Italy the big one is the Premio Nazionale per l’Innovazione (PNI), which PNICube, the university network behind it, calls the largest business plan competition in the country. Winners of the regional Start Cups (17 are active) go through to the final, held this year on 3 and 4 December at the Fiera del Levante in Bari, with cash prizes and special mentions. A prize isn’t an investment: nobody takes a slice of your company.

A grant (contributo a fondo perduto) is money you don’t pay back. Invitalia runs two schemes. Resto al Sud 2.0 is for eight southern regions: Sicily, Sardinia, Calabria, Puglia, Campania, Basilicata, Molise and Abruzzo. Autoimpiego Centro-Nord covers the remaining twelve. Both opened on 15 October 2025. The target is anyone from 18 up to, but not including, 35 who is inactive, unemployed, in the GOL programme or among the working poor. Southern applicants choose between a voucher of up to €40,000 (€50,000 in some cases) and a grant that pays 75% of an investment programme of up to €120,000. The Centre-North is a little lower: vouchers reach €30,000 (€40,000 in some cases) and the grant covers 65%.

One warning: read the definitions before opening a VAT number or a company. Invitalia’s FAQ counts as inattivi only people who don’t work, have no active partita IVA and hold no role in an active company.

That’s your next step on the map: our guide to grants for young entrepreneurs in Italy covers who qualifies and how to apply. Further on, an innovative startup with a plan of at least €100,000 can look at Smart&Start Italia, a zero-interest loan covering 80% of eligible costs (90% for teams made up entirely of women and/or people under 36). It’s a loan, not a gift. Our Smart&Start guide explains the rest.

When do you need a company? SRL vs SRLS costs in 2026

Not on day one. Interviews, a waitlist and a landing page don’t need a company. You’ll need one when money starts moving regularly, when clients want to sign with a business, when two or more founders need to own shares, or when someone wants to invest. Talk to an accountant as soon as the first euro comes in.

If you want limited liability, you’ll be choosing between two versions of the SRL, the Italian limited liability company. An SRLS (semplificata) can only be set up by natural persons, with capital from €1 to €9,999.99, on a standard deed whose clauses can’t be changed. An ordinary SRL lets you write your own articles. Its capital is normally €10,000 but can be as low as €1, paid in cash and in full; in that case a fifth of each year’s profits goes into a reserve until reserve and capital reach €10,000.

Item (first year)	SRLS	SRL	Note
Notary fee	€0	€1,500 to €3,000 + 22% VAT	Not due for an SRLS by law
Registration tax (imposta di registro)	€200	€200	Fixed amount
Stamp duty (imposta di bollo)	€0	€156	SRLS exempt
Registro Imprese secretarial fees	€0	€90	SRLS exempt
Chamber of commerce annual fee (diritto annuale)	€120	€120	2026 figure for new companies at the Milan chamber, 20% increase included
Corporate books tax (tassa libri sociali)	€309.87	€309.87	Flat, paid every year
Fixed costs before capital	about €630	about €903 + notary	The SRL figure includes a €27.50 notarial archive tax; capital, PEC and accountant come on top
PEC (certified email)	from about €5 to €10 a year	from about €5 to €10 a year	Companies must have one; no fully free unlimited PEC exists
Accountant	€200 to €400 a month online; €3,000 to €6,000 a year or more traditional	Same ranges	The biggest running cost

So at the start the gap is mostly the notary, which an SRLS doesn’t pay. The price is flexibility. Money.it points out that banks and investors may see the two forms differently, and an SRLS can’t adapt its standard clauses. If you expect to raise money soon, ask the notary whether starting as an ordinary SRL would save you a conversion later.

Thinking of registering as a startup innovativa? Go through the requirements and benefits before you sign anything. And if you want a full first-year budget, runway included, it’s in how much money you need to start a startup.

Your zero-budget checklist

• Hold on to your income until customers, rather than hope, tell you otherwise.
• Run the free validation plan first and collect emails and deposits.
• Ask your first customers to pay in advance, or to sign a letter of intent, before you build.
• Selling the work as a service is fine while it teaches you something, provided it has an end date.
• Put the PNI and your regional Start Cup deadlines in your calendar.
• If you’re under 35, check whether Resto al Sud 2.0 or Autoimpiego Centro-Nord could apply to you.
• Hold off on the company until money, contracts or co-founders make you open one, and have written quotes from a notary and an accountant ready by then.

This article is general information, not legal or tax advice. Costs and rules change: check the official call, or ask a notary or an accountant, before you incorporate or apply.