Zero Investment - How to get free workforce for start-up in India

In my last blog, I talked about how a student can bootstrap a start-up with zero investment and take this forward in the chain of building start-ups, here I'll tell about how one can get a workforce for their start-up with zero investment. I believe it is evident that core jobs are needed to be done by the core team, but other not-so-technical works can be done efficiently by other means and in this blog, I'll tell about how one can manage that unpaid workforce for not-so-core jobs. Interns are the answer to all the questions but, hiring them is not sufficient, managing them so that they give some considerable outcome is very important; you need to make them feel like they are working for some very organised firm, which can be done through the following steps:

1. For hiring interns, the best platform in India is LinkedIn so the primary step should be to make a LinkedIn page (free of cost) which also looks good, which means it includes a proper and updated about section, contact section, profile and cover picture and several posts. As students from good universities look for the company's status before applying, these updated sections will help you look good as an employer. Another important factor is followers, not required but there should be at least 50+ followers as it presents as a working start-up for that, you can invite your connections to follow your page which is not a very tough task as if you send invitations to 300-400 of your connections, 50+ will easily accept the invitation (tried and tested).

2. The next step is to make a job posting (free of cost) for a Human Resource Intern as these guys will give you the other required people. For that prepare a well-designed job description, search on google for an example, a proper job description should be like- the company's about section, responsibilities, requirements and benefits. About section will be the same as on the LinkedIn page; responsibilities would be something like- hiring interns for various domains like marketing and business development, developing strategies for employee management, and employee training management; requirements would be undergoing bachelor's or master's degree, spoken and written fluency in the English language and motivation to work for growing start-up; for benefits sections, mention experience certificate, letter of recommendations as per performance. In last, mention it clearly that it is an unpaid internship.

3. Soon you'll get so many applications as there are thousands of students out there who are willing for having an experience even through unpaid internships, and many international firms are also using them. Select the suitable applications and schedule an interview with them through Linkedin, ask a few questions in the interview like "how do you think you're suitable for this job" and ask a few questions about stuff mentioned in their resumes and select as per your requirement.

4. As I have mentioned in my previous blog that if you buy a domain name, then you can have a website without building a website, the same domain will be useful here. You can make an HR email address with your domain like HR@company.in as any emails to the candidates from this email address will present your start-up as an established firm. Emails through domain addresses can be made easily through various sources but you can use Zoho Mail for that as here you can make up to 5 email addresses on your domain without a single penny.

5. After getting that email address send the selected candidates a proper offer letter, google an example for it and paste it on your company's letterhead which can be designed for free through Canva. After the acceptance of the offer, send them an appointment letter too with an induction date.

6. Do an induction, in which tell them about your start-up, how to draft a job description, how to post a job on LinkedIn, and how to interview a candidate. After that, you have to tell them the requirements like you want two social media marketing interns or three business development interns and your HR Interns will follow the same process to hire them. Also, add those HR Interns to your canvas team so that they have access to the letterhead which can be used for offer and appointment letters for further recruitment. Also, ask them to manage a record of all this on a shared google sheet so that you have information about the intern's tenure. Remind them to hire a replacement of them a week before their tenure ends, this way you'll always have people for these jobs.

7. For induction of social media marketing interns, share your social media accounts passwords(which should be changed every month) and ask them to make relevant content every week with a target number like 2 reels and 4 posts by each intern). You can also add them as a creator on your LinkedIn page so that they could post on LinkedIn too. Business development interns would be used for sales proposes, so in induction tell them how to research your prospective clients, store their details in a commonly shared google sheet, how to talk to them on call and how to share proposals with them over email. For email, you can again make an email address as business@company.in for this purpose.

8. For boosting their motivation you can always have a "best employee of the month" and other similar awards for the whole organisation or each team and as a reward, you can post their photo or add a story on your social media channels. Along with that, you can also have some remote competitions like using an application named - "Impact" where you collect points by walking and those points get converted into donations for some noble causes; you can add your employees on the page and have a competition upon who donated more.

9. Most university students have the compulsion to do an internship, for them the most important thing is a confirmation from your side to the university that the candidate is doing an internship at your organisation, which can be done by the HR email address made.

Through these steps, you can have an efficient and zero-investment workforce for your start-up as I had for mine. I hired and managed 30+ interns from well-known institutions in the country like IIT Roorkee, IIM Indore, Jadavpur University, Christ Unversity, Delhi University and a lot more for my start-up VAR Consultants. If you have any questions then comment or reach me through the contact form on the home page and also subscribe to my page for similar content.