If you start a company yourself you own 100% of it.
If you have nothing to invest in it, and if it needs capital to get started, then you need to borrow funds to invest or sell part of the company to an investor.
In the former case your net worth will be the value of the company less the value of your debt. In the latter case you'll own less of the company, but you can still own most of it.
This applies whether you're in a rich western country starting a company that needs big amounts of capital, or in a developing country and starting a small business with micro-loans or micro-investments through bodies like Kiva.
But none of this is about what is easy. It’s never easy to attain something that is prized and scarce.
It's about what decisions will give the greatest probability of the outcome you want, given the opportunities and resources that you have available to you.
