Repress the Expense of Starting your Business

by Startacus Admin

Money (or lack of it) is so important when starting a business. So here is a guest post offering some handy tips to keep you going without spending a small fortune. 

So you have your great idea all set and ready to go. Your business plan is infallible and you’ve thought through every possible contingency. You are a business god. Unfortunately, you’re also dirt poor and the idea of covering your overheads is frightening to say the least. The last thing you want to do is to crash and burn (or, more aptly, go out with a whimper) within a few months of starting. Every investment you get is important and it is essential to stretch every penny as far as it will go. Here are 4 tips to help ensure you can keep yourself going long enough to get the success you deserve.

Tip #1 Traditional accounting is not the only option

Accounting is no fun. At all. Ever. No one actually enjoys it, not even the accountants themselves. It is a necessity and a stress that everyone wants to avoid, hence many businesses passing on the ordeal to an accountancy firm. This will save you a lot of time and worry, but it will also cost you a fair bit of cash too. Instead, you could consider online accounting. First off, it’s incredibly simple to use so you’ll still avoid the stress. Secondly, it is much cheaper as well. At worst it’ll save you time and money and at best it’ll save you a mental breakdown.

Tip #2 Make deals with other businesses

You have a service to offer, that’s why you’ve started a business. You also need other businesses’ services just like they might need yours. For example, if you’re a photographer you’re more than likely going to need to print things. Go along to your local printer and offer to do some press shots for them in return for a discount or free prints. Always keep an eye on companies you use for your business as you never know when you might come in handy to them and therefore save yourself some cash.

Tip #3 Don’t quit the day job

This sounds depressing right from the start, but it is an unfortunate reality for a new business. Don’t feel like you need to make your startup become your full time job straight away. It would certainly be easier to run that way, but it is also going to be much more expensive. If you have faith in your business you should be willing to put in the hours in on top of your normal job and wait till you can support yourself with your own company. It will be tough and it will be hard, but it’ll be a great feeling to hand in your notice knowing you’re sorted financially.

Tip #4 Take advantage of cloud computing

Running a website can often be a difficult and inexact art. You have to try and work out the kind of bandwidth you’ll need in advance. If you get too little then you risk having the site crash from overloading or, if you buy too much, you’ll just end up wasting money. Cloud computing offers a much better service that is massively more flexible. You pay for what you use essentially. If traffic increases, then you increase the size of your ‘cloud’ and if it decreases, you just scale it back down. It is a simple process and it’s quick too, so you’ll save money and avoid any site down time which will damage your business.

Joshua Danton Boyd is a copywriter for Crunch accounting. He also contributes music articles to Spindle Magazine and writes his own blog called Don't Get Born. Cheers Josh some handy tips! 

Check out the Startacus business toolkit for a growing directory of all the business bits and bobs, links and articles  you may need - whatever business you are looking to start.

Join the Self Start society! If you like what you see here on Startacus and want to get involved yourself, why not become a member of our growing community by joining for free here!  Or... if you prefer, why not get features like this direct to your inbox by signing up to receive our bi-monthly newsletter. Simply enter your email address and we'll be in touch. 

 

Published on: 2nd October 2012