Cost saving tips for start ups

Candidates

Just wanted to share my cost saving tips for startup businesses.

"Overheads are always constant and income is variable" never a truer quote for a start-ups

I have no ties to any of the businesses.

Banks
Make sure when you pick your bank that they look after start-ups. I know BoI/Ulster bank give free banking for the first 2 years and discounted credit card. Some give vouchers for discounted membership to groups like the SFA and IIA etc.


Salesforce
Salesforce is a CRM (Customer relationship manager), it is free for the small business edition. It can be hard to get used to but integrates into Google hosted/email and has iphone apps. Alternatively the Microsoft action pack contains 1 server and 10 client licenses for MS CRM Dynamics 4.0.

www.salesforce.com

Blueface
Blueface are a VOIP company that has been around for 5 or so years. It means you can use your broadband connection to make calls via a softphone (software based phone) or an IP phone.

We use it in the office and for €35 per month we get Blueface unlimited UK & Irish landline calls as well as email-to-fax service, 2 phone numbers (we have an 01 and 021 to makes us look bigger than we are!!) and a fax number plus loads of stuff like online bill, call conferencing and the ability to dial into your Blueface account from a normal phone or mobile and dial out to a international number and get the blueface rates for international call.

Handy as it works anywhere there is broadband so if you are like us you might change you office a few times in the first few years. When you move office (or work from home) you just plug the phone into your broadband connection and away you go. So no hassle having to try to get Eircom to port numbers !!

I had a few probs setting it up at first (My fault btw) but the guys in Blueface support were really nice.

www.blueface.ie

Google hosted
This has been great as we can use Google hosted to host all our email accounts up to 50 accounts. Mail box size of 7 GB or so and you get shared calendars doc storage etc. All free.... god bless google.


http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/group/index.html


Microsoft MAPS
Microsoft Action Pack is a starter pack for small businesses, it cost €360 per year. This gives you licenses (1 year i think) to alot of MS software. You get 10 copies of Office Professional, Project, Visio etc and single copies of Exchange server Server 2003, 2008.

A great pack for anyone starting and not wanting to join the open source revolution.
More detail on the MS site
https://partner.microsoft.com/40013779


Any one else got other tips for startups ???

fiscalstudent

www.rebtel.com

Offer an amazing phone service, cant describe it properly but described better than I could in 3 simple diagrams on their webpage






__________________________
www.fiscalstudent.com

gnxx

1. On the telephone side; stick with traditional phone systems. We managed with a 6 line analog switch until 2003 !! We bought it for £200.

It was great since we didn't need engineers or support for the system. We are a hi-tech company, but really believe that no chances should be taken with the reliability of phone systems -- so we have shunned VOIP based systems. A key issue is the requirement for bandwidth.


2. Work out a budget and absolutely stick to it. You would not believe how many companies that have really good / tight budgets and then ignore them !!

Make sure that when you budget, look at the previous years expenses to allow for items that you might have forgotten.

3. Go open source for operating systems. We've used OpenOffice since its early days and it is really stable. We have a software budget of €200 per year now ...

4. Outsource anything were you do not have the expertise or time. We do this .... and so does Gordon Ramsay :-) We have one exception to this rule ( see 5 below )

5. Don't use recruitment agencies. They are expensive, over promise and rarely deliver.

6. Shop around for all large items. Insurance, Electricity, Phone bills etc.

7. Negotiate with suppliers on both discount and payment terms. If you have the cash promise immediate payment for larger discounts. If you don't have the cash do the opposite. Tell you suppliers up front if you expect to be late paying -- and make sure you stick to any promises related to payments.

8. Call the bank and complain about bank charges. Tell them that you want your money back or you will change banks .. When this is done, do the same with your mobile phone company.

9. Try and hire part-time staff ... they generally deliver better quality work and give you the ability to scale quickly. Much better to have two people sharing the same job.

10. Look at the other side of the profit and loss. Sometimes ( particularly at the moment ) companies become almost obsessive about saving costs and forget about generating revenue. Look for new revenue options .. they are most certainly out there ..

It's pretty bloody ridiculous that people who own their businesses have to wait for a recession before a lot of them start taking cost saving measures and watching their cash flow like a hawk.

To be honest, it should give a lot of people who want to start their own business even more confidence.

simplybetter

+ 1 for Blueface

conolan

Is the OP plugging his/her own service?

Agree on recruitment agencies, only exception is if you are too busy earning revenue to do it yourself.

Agree PARTLY on part-timers. two people doing (sharing) the same job. Only if it's grunt work. Definitely not if it's handling customer relations, supervising, or managing stuff.

GoneShootin

conolan wrote: »

Is the OP plugging his/her own service?

No - having spoken with OP there is no nefarious relationship.

fiscalstudent

nefarious

Great Word!

It's pretty bloody ridiculous that people who own their businesses have to wait for a recession before a lot of them start taking cost saving measures and watching their cash flow like a hawk.

I don't totally agree. When people are very busy it may be more beneficial to go with a service that is more expensive eg.recruitment agency

But when they have more time (less busy/recession), performing recruitment themselves is more cost effective

MB74

One very simple tip for a start up is get the most out of your credit terms.

fiscalstudent

fiscalstudent wrote: »

Great Word!



I don't totally agree. When people are very busy it may be more beneficial to go with a service that is more expensive eg.recruitment agency

But when they have more time (less busy/recession), performing recruitment themselves is more cost effective

Yeah but that's a strategic decision, if they are too busy making money, they can afford the recruitment agency route if it continues to add value.

My point was more aimed at people who go the fastest route through lack of being organised and a deficiency of actual common sense or cop on!

thecleverone

Website

Why not learn how to do it yourself though a course such as http://short.ie/z04udm ?*

As well as saving you lots of money in updating and creating websites over the next fews years, its a great way to upskill yourself.

*I have no affiliation with this company. Just a satisfied client.

One day? What can you learn in one day? It can't be much more than the bare basics.

I'd love to see the "professional website" people create after 8 hours of learning how to implement pictures, frames and text into a website using html.

shoutman

It's an eight hour seminar and does seem to have many good reviews. However lets get this back on topic, it's been a good thread so far.

thecleverone

One day? What can you learn in one day? It can't be much more than the bare basics.

I'm not looking to become professional website designer... its just enough information to allow me create and update my website as i want to instead of paying someone every time i want to change something, which is what i have been doing. Thats why i posted it here as it is a thread about cost saving tips. Not "how to become a professional website designer".

But like shoutman said,

However lets get this back on topic, it's been a good thread so far.

Doodee

Candidates wrote: »

Google hosted
This has been great as we can use Google hosted to host all our email accounts up to 50 accounts. Mail box size of 7 GB or so and you get shared calendars doc storage etc. All free.... god bless google.


http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/group/index.html

Incorrect, This is only for Non-profit organizations. If you are a registered company you will have to pay for each account.

Axwell

thecleverone wrote: »

I'm not looking to become professional website designer... its just enough information to allow me create and update my website as i want to instead of paying someone every time i want to change something, which is what i have been doing. Thats why i posted it here as it is a thread about cost saving tips. Not "how to become a professional website designer".

But like shoutman said,

You should have got a CMS website then in the first place which would allow you to easily make changes and updates to your own site.

thecleverone

You should have got a CMS website then in the first place which would allow you to easily make changes and updates to your own site.

Yes, i know that now, but starting off i didn't know it was an option.

to be fair, on that link you showed, it says you can make a professional website by the end of the day. It's either 1) not that professional or 2) people have really low standards of what professional is.

On a side note, I have surfed around on that irishbusinesswomen.com website and it's shocking how many people there underhandedly promote their own services and it's also quite sad from an "outsider looking in" point of view just how many people are praised for what are really unprofessional websites that are crap basically. I think part of that problem could come from these "one day professional html" courses. I have an issue because some people get manipulated by the lingo quite easily.

I praise you for understanding what these courses are for and fair play if it helps you achieve your goals but for most people who go out and get an authentic and proper professional website, they will also get as Axwell says a CMS which will be better for them than these one day courses. A professional web designer who has a successful portfolio of websites will be able to tell you straight off the bat about CMS because I don't think unless you are an HTML expert that anyone can make a site looking professional unless they use something like X Site Pro which is probably the best thing out there besides Dreamweaver.

Edit: I know the mods want this to stay on topic but the info Axwell and myself have provided could help people (like me starting up) and save them from falling for what are not very good courses at all. Most students in first year do HTML as part of a business course but it' the absolute basics (what's covered in that one day course) and is not by any means professional. This is a vital cost saving tip for new businesses, if you're serious about it, get a pro to do it. I'm not a webdesigner or affiliated with web design in any way but a pro knows best.

Axwell

Just to add to this, the course says its going to teach you how to design a website. What it doesnt tell you, or what those doing the course wouldnt know not being in the industry is that the information thought on the course would be considered dated. Tables and frames are old and a step backwards in web design. Tables have been taken over by divs and css. So while you might be shown how to make a website it will be a web site that fails to meet todays design standards.
Web design is like any other professional business, you can try your hand at it but at the end of the day there are professionals out there doing it. For your own business presence online its better to have it done by a professional than trying your hand at it and being proud of what you put up but it looking bad and unprofessional and putting people off your business. In one days training you arent going to come out and be able to put up a profesional looking site that represents your business properly online. You would be better saving your money and getting your website redone with a cms.

GoneShootin

Deleted User wrote: »

the mods want this to stay on topic

That would be nice. Can we all agree to do that from here on out?

Absolutely but what I posted is a cost saving tip - save yourself the hassle because it won't be as good as going to a real pro.