What's needed to create online business

nutjobb

I'm trying to scope out what's required to create an online business. I think a website like booking.com can be used for comparison. I have a brief list below of what I think needs to happen in order. Maybe you can agree or disagree based on your experiences. Let's assume funding is there for this example.

I believe the steps would be as follows:
1. Create idea
2. Approach local enterprise office for business guidance
3. Market research
4. Consult accountant
4. Approach website creator
5. Create website
6. Register company, set up for tax etc.
7. Set up business bank acc, email etc.
8. Website goes live
9. Marketing for website
10. Hiring of staff as company grows

Questions:
Website creator/design. Once a website is set up, is there regular maintenence required, what happens if more traffic needs to be supported?

I think marketing is the biggest factor for a new site offering a new service. Opinions? How do marketing companies generally get paid? Set fees, or a % of something as the business grows?

How do people pick their accountant? Im assuming most is done through word of mouth.

I'm sure I'll have more shortly.

DaveJoyce

Hey


I would change the list around a little bit I would start the marketing as soon as possible. I would even have a sign up page for a newsletter as point 2


Depending on how complicated the website is you will need on-going updates. If you take WordPress as an example you would be able to keep a lot of it maintained yourself and there are hundreds of plug-ins and youtube tutorials. I would always get a developer and maybe work a deal out where you either keep him on retainer or pay as required.


For marketing I would want to know the amount of value I would be bringing to the company, for instance if I charged a company €50,000 for a job and it make them €5 million then I have lost out as they would have paid €100,000 to get back €5 million. But if you are looking to do your own marketing there are plenty of online resources that you can use, I found Neil Patel very helpful (especially ubersuggest)



I got my accountant online, and I am looking online for a new accountant, but I would also got for someone if they were recommended to me



Hope this helps
Dave
(disclosure: I am a web developer and I started my own online agency. I found my accountant online and I do my own Marketing work)

nutjobb wrote: »

I'm trying to scope out what's required to create an online business. I think a website like booking.com can be used for comparison. I have a brief list below of what I think needs to happen in order. Maybe you can agree or disagree based on your experiences. Let's assume funding is there for this example.

I believe the steps would be as follows:
1. Create idea
2. Approach local enterprise office for business guidance
3. Market research
4. Consult accountant
4. Approach website creator
5. Create website
6. Register company, set up for tax etc.
7. Set up business bank acc, email etc.
8. Website goes live
9. Marketing for website
10. Hiring of staff as company grows

Questions:
Website creator/design. Once a website is set up, is there regular maintenence required, what happens if more traffic needs to be supported?

I think marketing is the biggest factor for a new site offering a new service. Opinions? How do marketing companies generally get paid? Set fees, or a % of something as the business grows?

How do people pick their accountant? Im assuming most is done through word of mouth.

I'm sure I'll have more shortly.

Dylan765

on the website end of things, yes WordPress is excellent, i went from zero code knowledge to tweaking various css elements in a matter of days, theres likely a plugin for any extra functionality you can think of. Updates are simple and it can service pretty much any need, i will say though choose your hosting provider carefully, i went with one on price first and regretted it , now in the process of moving to new provider.

nutjobb

Thanks very much for 2 excellenct replies.

Dylan765

Also if your looking to accept payments online make sure your product or service wont run afoul of payment gateway product / service prohibition lists which can be quite extensive and in some respects surprising with zero tolerance for anything that makes the list.

ironclaw

I'd put 'Market research' first and add a step for validation before you do anything else. If you are looking at the e-commerce route, set up a Shopify store yourself and try make a sale. Do not, under any circumstances spend more than about 500EUR until you have validated your idea i.e. Made a sale. Digital businesses have the luxury of very low costs to test a market so take advantage of it.

Website creator/design. Once a website is set up, is there regular maintenance required, what happens if more traffic needs to be supported?

Regular maintenance is required but it depends on your platform. Shopify for example, it's lower as its managed by Shopify themselves. You have a lower cost of ownership on Spotify but customisation is harder. WordPress, by comparison, has a medium cost of ownership if you are not admin'ing yourself but the barriers to customisation are practically non-existent. You can do anything on that platform.

I think marketing is the biggest factor for a new site offering a new service. Opinions? How do marketing companies generally get paid? Set fees, or a % of something as the business grows?

Yes, it is, but you should have a good idea from your market research and business validation steps. Marketing companies get paid a retainer, regardless of how good or bad your business does. Remember this. There are plenty of gurus who will take your money and delivery garbage. I strongly suggest you take advantage of the free resources from Google and Faceook to deliver online ads. It's not hard and anyone, and I mean anyone, can do it. Get yourself going, put a little cash in, and hire someone only when you can confidential review their work.

From my side, I've been building sites for ~20 years and I currently run two SaaS companies. I've built everyting from Mom & Pop, to Fortune company systems so feel free to ask away.

nutjobb

Dylan765 wrote: »

on the website end of things, yes WordPress is excellent, i went from zero code knowledge to tweaking various css elements in a matter of days, theres likely a plugin for any extra functionality you can think of. Updates are simple and it can service pretty much any need, i will say though choose your hosting provider carefully, i went with one on price first and regretted it , now in the process of moving to new provider.

Excellent, I will have a go at this. For hosting providers, was this picked through word press or completed external from it?

vintagecosmos

Google the 7 day startup. A really quick read but gives you some really important knowledge around validation. No point in most of the list if no one will actually buy what you are selling and importantly you don't enjoy what you are doing. Best of luck.

Dylan765

Hi pick the hosting first google wordpress hosting recommendations, ideally local Irish hosting but thats just me, you likely have some type of cpanel interface where you can install wordpress with a couple of clicks to your domain, its literally that easy.

mariopepper

Thanks for recommendations. One more quiestion - how important using crm for online business? Is it necessary additional for middle sized business?

ironclaw

mariopepper wrote: »

Thanks for recommendations. One more quiestion - how important using crm for online business? Is it necessary additional for middle sized business?

CRM's are only as effective as the people using them. Simply moving leads, users, deals etc through a CRM doesn't mean it's being used well. Most companies don't use them to their full potential as they either don't understand how to use them or their internal processes don't line up.

You often have to align your processes to match a CRM or you need to customise the CRM to match your processes. I generally recommend the former as it's cheaper and easier to implement.

CRMs make a world of difference to a company if they are used well and as you scale, they become invaluable. On the flip side, if your customer base is very small, it can be overkill.

Carefully research each CRM and check it matches with what you wish to achieve. HubSpot is a good starting point if you are brand new to CRMs. It's free and the feature set is really good. It also has some great add-ons that can become really valuable e.g Email marketing. They also have some brilliant free resources to give you an overview of the CRM world.

I come from an SAP background and I build connectors between CRMs, so if you had any specifics, feel free to ask.

vintagecosmos

I would only worry about a CRM when you have paying customers! Use a Google sheet for now.

mariopepper

ironclaw wrote: »

CRM's are only as effective as the people using them. Simply moving leads, users, deals etc through a CRM doesn't mean it's being used well. Most companies don't use them to their full potential as they either don't understand how to use them or their internal processes don't line up.

You often have to align your processes to match a CRM or you need to customise the CRM to match your processes. I generally recommend the former as it's cheaper and easier to implement.

CRMs make a world of difference to a company if they are used well and as you scale, they become invaluable. On the flip side, if your customer base is very small, it can be overkill.

Carefully research each CRM and check it matches with what you wish to achieve. HubSpot is a good starting point if you are brand new to CRMs. It's free and the feature set is really good. It also has some great add-ons that can become really valuable e.g Email marketing. They also have some brilliant free resources to give you an overview of the CRM world.

I come from an SAP background and I build connectors between CRMs, so if you had any specifics, feel free to ask.

I was thinking about hubspot first but then I've analyzed some other crm's and I've found quite good option. EspoCRM, maybe you've used it before. My friends adviced me this one too and I like that it cloud hosted and on-premise. Thank you for responding, it was very helpful. By the way, how many time did you work with SAP background?

ironclaw

mariopepper wrote: »

I was thinking about hubspot first but then I've analyzed some other crm's and I've found quite good option. EspoCRM, maybe you've used it before. My friends adviced me this one too and I like that it cloud hosted and on-premise. Thank you for responding, it was very helpful. By the way, how many time did you work with SAP background?

I'd honestly lean more towards HubSpot. It's a solid piece of kit and is frankly a huge company, they also have integrations to numerous tools that you are likely to use as you scale. Open source is nice but having support is better when it comes to a business unless you have the resources/background to support yourself.

For SAP, I worked for them around the world for a number of years.

mariopepper

ironclaw wrote: »

I'd honestly lean more towards HubSpot. It's a solid piece of kit and is frankly a huge company, they also have integrations to numerous tools that you are likely to use as you scale. Open source is nice but having support is better when it comes to a business unless you have the resources/background to support yourself.

For SAP, I worked for them around the world for a number of years.

Maybe if I will have any problems with current crm I would move to hubspot. But I'm still learning about their features