Best way to raise £5k

[AT700]

Hello,

I need £5k to start up a new venture, not a lot I know
But....

I have no personal funds of my own.
My monthly income is currently £400 - which doesn't even cover the cost of me living.
I'm useless at business plans
I haven't any family or friends to rely on who could help with an advance

What can I do? I wouldn't secure a loan because my income is so low.

Any help appreciated.

 

[ethical PR]

If you want people to lend you money then you will have to put some time into developing a business plan - no point saying you are useless at them. It will help you understand whether you have a viable business.

What do you need £5000 for.? Are there other models you could do with lower start up costs?

If you are under 30 try The Prince's Trust who offer small loans, who may have a more flexible lending criteria.

The easiest way (unless you are in the middle of the countryside with no transport) would be to get a second job. There are lots of temporary jobs available in retail and the hospitality industry and at the Post Office in the lead up to Christmas.

 

[AT700]

Hello ethical PR

I have developed a business plan, which identifies strategy, revenue, profitability and growth but the aspects I struggle with are exit strategies and growth in year 3 and beyond.
I unsure how I can project without just making up figures? In my opinion my business plan isn't professional enough.

I need the £5k for a wordpress site, online marketing and hiring freelancers to help create content in the early days.
Realistically more than £5k would be required but this is enough to get the business off the ground.

I feel the odds are stacked against me - I have no money of my own, I have failed in business before due to a lack of funding, I got in to £6k debt of which I pay off monthly (So I have an outstanding debt - I haven't any CCJ's or anything but I do have debt), I'm not a home owner so I've no collateral and I've never had an overdraft or credit card from the bank so I've no history with them.

I've been to the Princes Trust before with another concept last year - I went in front of the panel where they said my business was an excellent idea but didn't pass the lending criteria.

In terms of a job, I work on commission only averaging about £400 a month, I'm new to it and the figure grows as you develop business - I leave home at 7.30 and don't get home until 7.30 most evenings.. I doubt I'd be able to squeeze in another job!
I've been searching for a new job for some time but can't secure even an interview in most cases.

What I'd like to do is hire a professional to help build my business plan and then a video animator to help with promotion - However to do this is way out of my budget.

Thanks.

 

[ethical PR]

It's difficult to comment, as we don't know what business you are trying to build.

However in terms of your work, why would you want to work for for less than minimum wage? I don't know your background or experience or where you are based, but you would get substantially more working in retail or hospitality, the care sector or working as a postie, for far fewer hours and for many of these roles you need little experience.

My son and his friends who have recently completely their A levels managed to get work like this with no work experience at all.

I don't know what the lending criteria is for the Prince's Trust or why you failed it...did they give you any feedback to help you understand how you could meet it?

 

[swankypants69]

If you are working 10 hours a day 5 days a week and bring home £400 per month on a commission only basis you may as well jack it in and go get a minimum wage job stacking shelves for 40 hours a week

You will have your extra 5k in 12 months

 

[NickGrogan]

What, in a sentence or two, is the business?

£5k for a wordpress site and wanting an animation to promote the site sounds like spending a lot of money for no return.

 

[AT700]

If you are working 10 hours a day 5 days a week and bring home £400 per month on a commission only basis you may as well jack it in and go get a minimum wage job stacking shelves for 40 hours a week

You will have your extra 5k in 12 months

Work for me is all about achieving things and enjoying it too. I've struggled with depression since 2010 and work is massive part of my life like everyone's, so I make sure I enjoy it.
I work long hours for little money but I do honestly enjoy it... I just wish the money was a little better.

What's to say I'd get a job stacking shelves anyway? Easy to say but not easy to achieve when 100's are applying for the same jobs...

 

[AT700]

Sorry the business is in online media, creating, sourcing and sharing strange, humorous and interesting content.

The wordpress site won't cost much at all - £300 - it's only basic theme that's required.
I'll need help with content creation from freelancers as I won't be able to keep up with the demand on my own - this cost's anything from £10 - £50 + per post.
The bulk will be used for facebook ads - I need to create a big following on this platform to be able to direct people to my site.

I'll earn revenue via adsense initially.
I won't be able to monetise until month 3 - as google won't allow my site to integrate with adsense until I've developed a big enough unique visitor rate - not sure why? I was just informed of this.

By Month 3, I should have 1,800 unique visitors per day minimum.

 

[LukeF]

Have you tried the government startup scheme?

https://www.startuploans.co.uk

 

[Alan]

I'll earn revenue via adsense initially.
....
By Month 3, I should have 1,800 unique visitors per day minimum.

Hmmm, maybe other have different experience.

1,800 unique visitors a day is massive target, for a small investment. The biggest successful blog of any of our clients is a recipe blog, with 350 unique mouth watering recipes and tons of original photography, been running for a few years. 800 uniques per day.

If you hit 1,800 uniques per day, I'm not sure what the click through rates into Adsense are, but I doubt they are massive. A targeted and conversion optimised website tends to get conversions of 0.5% to 3%. I would guess that Adsense would be about a tenth. So lets say 0.3%, so 5.4 clicks on ads per day. Lets say the average click value is 40p = £2.16 per day.

£5,000 investment, pays back in 6.4 years!

OK I'm not an expert on these things I may be wrong by a mile.

 

[fisicx]

Sorry the business is in online media, creating, sourcing and sharing strange, humorous and interesting content.

You mean just like all the other sites already doing the same thing.

You won't build a following from facebook ads and you won't earn much from adsense either (as Alan demonstrated).

Sorry to shatter your dream but this is not going to happen, even if you mange to find enought freelancers to create new content multiple times a day, 365 days a year.

 

[AT700]

You mean just like all the other sites already doing the same thing.

You won't build a following from facebook ads and you won't earn much from adsense either (as Alan demonstrated).

Sorry to shatter your dream but this is not going to happen, even if you mange to find enought freelancers to create new content multiple times a day, 365 days a year.

@fisicx Thanks for the negativity - you are a web designer like the 200 million others, do you make a profit? Yes I presume so......

I have a niche, I'll specialize in a certain field that isn't tapped in to as yet here in the UK.

I have experience in this field already, I launched a sports related content page in late 2013 / early 2014 - Grew it to just over 100,000 followers on facebook using facebook ads and approx 6 posts per day in a few months,
I stupidly sold the page to a digital marketing business as I hadn't monetised it at this point so I grabbed the money and ran... Bad mistake.

IMO you do build a following from investing in facebook ads, you just have to set your demographics right and invest money in to it continuously - you start slow but momentum builds quickly. Even £10 per day is enough to start with for a content sharing business.
It all depends what industry you're in and the audience you want to target.. You have to take your time.

I'm aware adsense isn't a massive earner... but it is when you're directing tons of traffic daily then it is a massive earner. This isn't a get rich quick scheme, this a business that needs a mass of effort and investment to profit from.

I want £5k to launch the business with that's all - nothing else.
The main priority in such business model is to focus on building a following, the second step is to then focus on monetizing it.

Once the business is working and revenue is starting to come in... like the couple of £ a day, I'll then look for further investments to take it to the next level.

Once you have a mass following - it's much easier to attract investment and potential advertising partners.

There are other revenue streams other to just adsense once you have developed a following.

 

[fisicx]

@fisicx Thanks for the negativity - you are a web designer like the 200 million others, do you make a profit? Yes I presume so...... .

Indeed, but it's taken a long time to get there. Look at 2leep, izismile, ebaumsworld, cheezeburger and many others. They have a massive following but it didn't happen in as short a tme as you are planning. Even if you do build up the following via facebook you won't earn enough from adsense to pay the freelancers.

So my negativity is experience in monetising a site like this. On one of my sites I get about 2000 visitors per day, it earns me about $100/month from adsense. That would pay for 10 posts per month from your freelancers and nothing left over to pay off the loan.

 

[ethical PR]

Rather than getting upset because you don't like the responses you receive (and you provided little information for people to make informed comments) focus on the useful advice you have been given.

Your situation is that you want to start a business for which you say you need 5K and that you aren't able to get this from family and friends, or a bank. Others with more expertise in this area have pointed out, that you are unlikely to be successful with the budget you have available.

Unless you go back to The Prince's Trust and get advice on how you can better meet their lending criteria and assuming you have explored local sourcing of funding and crowdfunding, your main option is to save this yourself.

You may enjoy a job that only brings in £400, but the reality is that if you keep it that would take you years to achieve your goal.

So your options. Work for yourself - dog walking, gardening, washing cars etc. Or work as a carer in a care home or the NHS (always in demand) or other entry level job. Yes lots of people apply for work, but if they had your attitude of not bothering because lots of people go for them then none of them would ever get a job.

You have the power to achieve your goal, so get out there and find yourself a job that will help you achieve your goal. But make sure that your business plan is realistic rather than losing more money in a business that won't work.

 

[boring-friday]

This is the worst idea I've read on here since the guy who wanted to start a 'hardcore' gym for people too scared to go to a actual hardcore gym. You basically want to traffic arbitrage from facebook to adsense which would never profit. Guys with 'funny' niches buy much cheaper traffic than facebook. They also just rewrite other websites content mostly.
To answer your question though, targets for year 3 are completely made up/guesses, even month 3 targets are impossible to get accurate for something like this

 

[AT700]

@ethical PR My attitude isn't that I don't go for them jobs because loads of people for for them. If you refer back to my earlier post, you'll read that my attitude is that I want to achieve something from work and stacking shelves will do absolutely nothing for me but bring me more income than currently.
I want to enjoy work and I want to learn and develop... that's my attitude towards work.
I've been searching for new jobs for some time but I haven't had much success - my background is in b2b business development, I had 7 years success with one company but had to leave due to personal reasons. Since then, I've struggled..

I passed the initial stage of the princes trust which is to basically prove my idea was viable, I then failed on the lending criteria due to already having a debt of £6k and not currently earning enough to take on another £4k.

@fisicx I understand where you are coming from 100%. I've never said I aim to get rich overnight or even in 2 years. I have achieved in the past a mass social following in a short space of time (over 100,000 followers) so I want to re-create that and build on it.

My site will provide informational content (stories) rather than just funny pictures and videos - in a certain niche.
It wouldn't be like those sites you mentioned as such, it'd be more like Mashable and Upworthy and using the strategy they have used to get so big not so much over here but in the US...
These sites were started with less that $5k and now they're valued at millions... and both have only been around for a few years.
I've spoken with the CEO of Mashable via email and he gave me some advice in terms of strategy and how they grew their following so quickly.

Look at what the LadBible and Unilad have achieved too. Unilad was formed in 2014 and has a facebook page with over 8million likes... Some going for being around for such a short space of time.
Both of these businesses are reportedly bringing in revenue of over £100k a month (Do an online search)

 

[Alan]

Out of interest, what was the nature of the failed business that landed you with £6k debt? Pure nosiness, don't answer if you don't want to.

 

[AT700]

This is the worst idea I've read on here since the guy who wanted to start a 'hardcore' gym for people too scared to go to a actual hardcore gym. You basically want to traffic arbitrage from facebook to adsense which would never profit. Guys with 'funny' niches buy much cheaper traffic than facebook. They also just rewrite other websites content mostly.
To answer your question though, targets for year 3 are completely made up/guesses, even month 3 targets are impossible to get accurate for something like this

@boring-friday Thanks for the answer r.e. year 3.
The facebook ads are only to build an initial following as you achieve a quick gain, the model isn't based on paying facebook to earn from google.. You're right it wouldn't work.
It's only part of the strategy for early gains.

 

[AT700]

Out of interest, what was the nature of the failed business that landed you with £6k debt? Pure nosiness, don't answer if you don't want to.

@Alan I have an interest in environmental responsibility and noticed that a lot of recyclable material from construction sites was sent straight to the landfill. I developed a system and service to direct it away from the landfill. It's USP was that it saved the contractor a lot of money in terms of paying for skips and it contributed to their environmental responsibility too.
It was doing really well and I had visions of taking it into the digital world via software etc.

I never had good cash flow though as I started the business with virtually nothing, I used money off one job to finance the next (labour and equipment etc.) then one big job I took on my client went bust shortly after I'd completed it - I lost out as I never got paid!... My business was gone!

I haven't really got much support so had to borrow money to live and get by, I also missed payments on my car, so that's where the debt has come from.

 

[Turnkey Businesses]

We offer start-up business packages that would get you started for a lot less than £5k, and will include a lot more than what you think you will get for your £5k. We don't have the business niche you are looking to move into, but the option is there if you decide to start a more standard business model.

either way i think your best bet is to +1 luke. You need a decent credit rating and a business plan but not much else for the loan below. You do need to pay it back though even if your business fails, so keep that in mind before going for the full £25k thinking its a shot at nothing.

Have you tried the government startup scheme?

https://www.startuploans.co.uk

 

[Alan]

@AT700 Thanks for sharing that. You obviously have multiple skills and experience, especially the experience of prior failure and the reasons why.

I really feel you are wasting your time with the £400 a month job, no matter how much you like it, you will be far better off to push your efforts into getting a job that pays you a decent rate for your skills and clearing your debt and getting a little bit of saving that you can put into your new venture, then you are more likely to get additional funding.

With your track record - £6,000 debt because you didn't manage cash flow / risk of your first venture and no hope of clearing that in any timescale, would make you uninvestable. Change that around to some one that learned a lesson the hard way, earned back their debt and also has some money to put in the game, changes the perspective.

 

[ethical PR]

@ethical PR My attitude isn't that I don't go for them jobs because loads of people for for them. I
f you refer back to my earlier post, you'll read that my attitude is that I want to achieve something from work and stacking shelves will do absolutely nothing for me but bring me more income than currently.
I want to enjoy work and I want to learn and develop... that's my attitude towards work.
I've been searching for new jobs for some time but I haven't had much success - my background is in b2b business development,

)

Well actual that's exactly what your attitude is...you said in an earlier post

"What's to say I'd get a job stacking shelves anyway? Easy to say but not easy to achieve when 100's are applying for the same jobs...'

The bottom line is that you say you need £5000 to start up your new business.

You say you can't get a loan or save up any money because your income is too low. And that you can't borrow from family and friends.

So if you want to keep on with your £400 a month job, rather than getting a couple of jobs a month that could see you earning several thousand and quickly saving up the amount you need, what do you see as your options?

 

[swankypants69]

I think realistically you don't have any option other than changing jobs and saving up

From your posts you clearly aren't a half wit, so you are capable of going out there and getting that minimum wage mind numbing job that we have all probably done before

If you can't cope with doing that, even if it's just a means to an end, then you are stuck

 

[Mark T Jones]

As others have mentioned, The Start Up Loan scheme is aimed specifically at people in your situation.

The application process relies heavily at putting together a coherent business plan that illustrate how the business will run and, above all, how you will live and meet repayments.

Your credit history might be a glitch, but if you are up-front it can often be addressed

 

[The Byre]

OK, let's go through your situation and dilemma logically -

In my opinion my business plan isn't professional enough.

All I ever look for in a business plan is a good business. As for future projections - I am an economist by training and I always tell people that I can predict anything, except the future. Nobody can predict that! You can, however, do a best realistic case and worst realistic case and draw a line between them.

I've seen multi-million dollar movies pitched with a simple conversation. This was followed up with a one-page treatment and producer and investor shook hands on the deal.

I need the £5k for a wordpress site, online marketing and hiring freelancers to help create content in the early days.
Realistically more than £5k would be required but this is enough to get the business off the ground.

Creating a Wordpress site and good content is YOUR job. That is what I would expect YOU to bring to the table.

In terms of a job, I work on commission only averaging about £400 a month.

Blimey!!! Are you the World's worst salesman, or is that just the World's worst sales job, or is it a mix of those two? And you are knocking yourself out for 12 hours a day? Read palms, beg, busk, sell The Big Issue, anything has to be better than that!

What I'd like to do is hire a professional to help build my business plan and then a video animator to help with promotion - However to do this is way out of my budget.

Again, that is YOUR job.

To sum up -

You are suffering from Dunning-Kruger syndrome. i.e. you do not know enough to realise that you do not know enough.

You do not need £5,000, or even £1,000. You do not need ANY money! What you need in knowledge. Learn to do these very simple tasks yourself. Creating a dufus Wordpress site is hardly brain-surgery. It is a simple skill that any normal human being is capable of acquiring.

Editing video is also a simple skill. Put AVI file on time-line, cut to length and join to other bits. Render and upload. Finished!

So go away and get yourself a proper job. One that requires your skills and labour for eight hours and not twelve and pays at least minimum wage. Then spend one hour a day learning to write html or at least how to slap together a simple Wordpress site. Also, if you insist, learn to use any simple video editor.

Then hire a bit of server space for $5 a month and create your great business idea and let it grow.

 

[SimplyMyLove]

You do not need £5,000, or even £1,000. You do not need ANY money! What you need in knowledge. Learn to do these very simple tasks yourself. Creating a dufus Wordpress site is hardly brain-surgery. It is a simple skill that any normal human being is capable of acquiring.

I completely agree. Seriously, you don't need £5k just for a Wordpress website, nor does it cost that much for a freelance web designer to do it for you. In my understanding, Wordpress is very much easy to use, coming with a large collection of free templates, and does not require an expensive web server to host it.

I'm not a funding expert, but hope this information would help you kick off your new business soon.

 

[TomYSB]

If you're selling a product try going down the crowdfunding route. Kickstarter. Indiegogo, go fund me i am doing it at the moment looking to raise £6k and so far things are going well. This way you will have presales and a customer base. You won't have to pay money back like a loan either as all funds raised go directly in to the project.

Apologies if you have mentioned what your doing. Not had the time to reach each comment.

 

[ethical PR]

Anna why are you spamming the forum with the same post advertising your event. If you want to advertise it on here...why not take out some advertising.

 

[Karimbo]

Hello ethical PR

I have developed a business plan, which identifies strategy, revenue, profitability and growth but the aspects I struggle with are exit strategies and growth in year 3 and beyond.
I unsure how I can project without just making up figures? In my opinion my business plan isn't professional enough.

I need the £5k for a wordpress site, online marketing and hiring freelancers to help create content in the early days.
Realistically more than £5k would be required but this is enough to get the business off the ground.

I feel the odds are stacked against me - I have no money of my own, I have failed in business before due to a lack of funding, I got in to £6k debt of which I pay off monthly (So I have an outstanding debt - I haven't any CCJ's or anything but I do have debt), I'm not a home owner so I've no collateral and I've never had an overdraft or credit card from the bank so I've no history with them.

I've been to the Princes Trust before with another concept last year - I went in front of the panel where they said my business was an excellent idea but didn't pass the lending criteria.

In terms of a job, I work on commission only averaging about £400 a month, I'm new to it and the figure grows as you develop business - I leave home at 7.30 and don't get home until 7.30 most evenings.. I doubt I'd be able to squeeze in another job!
I've been searching for a new job for some time but can't secure even an interview in most cases.

What I'd like to do is hire a professional to help build my business plan and then a video animator to help with promotion - However to do this is way out of my budget.

Thanks.

working 12 hours a day (I presume 5 days a week) and only making £400 a month is really bad. I don't know what you're doing but if you cannot increase you income quite fast I would advise you to quit and get a stable hourly pay job in a supermarket or something.

You will get a realistic income to start with on top of that you will actually get more time to work on your business. You needn't spend £5K on wordpress, online marketing & content. You can do all this yourself in the evenings.

 

[tombuckland]

I received a small loan of approximately the same amount 3 days ago so I'll give this a crack.

Personally I would say you need to have everything in place:
- Business plan (as boring and useless as they are in my opinion)
- Financial forecasts
- Half decent credit score (Seriously average is fine)
And most importantly something that makes an investor/bank/loan company actually want to give you the money. In my case I was able to explain how a previous business is coming along and even if the new one failed, I would still have the funds to pay them back. This meant it was 100% no risk to them and hence I was approved.

If you're in the south west check out https://www.swigfinance.co.uk/ they are pretty good.

 

[hawts]

Sorry the business is in online media, creating, sourcing and sharing strange, humorous and interesting content.

The wordpress site won't cost much at all - £300 - it's only basic theme that's required.
I'll need help with content creation from freelancers as I won't be able to keep up with the demand on my own - this cost's anything from £10 - £50 + per post.
The bulk will be used for facebook ads - I need to create a big following on this platform to be able to direct people to my site.

I'll earn revenue via adsense initially.
I won't be able to monetise until month 3 - as google won't allow my site to integrate with adsense until I've developed a big enough unique visitor rate - not sure why? I was just informed of this.

By Month 3, I should have 1,800 unique visitors per day minimum.

If this was me I would be doing everything myself from day one to minimise cost. Businesses start with an entrepreneur who does everything. For you this would be creating the website, generating the content and promoting the site wherever you can. Whatever it is, you'll do it yourself (and dedicate 18 hours of the day to it) if you really want it to work. Not only will this save you money it will also be a heck of a lot more rewarding if it works out as you'll have done most of the work.

 

[Jamie64]

If your genuinely serious about doing this and turning a profit, how would you manage that if your working from 7.30 - 7.30? I'd imagine that you wouldn't quit this job as you need it to pay the bills right? So personally I would find a different job that has earlier finishes to begin with. I completely agree that minimum wage jobs are over saturated in competition but in my experience this is only with big retail companies, perhaps try elsewhere?

With content creation using freelance designers; this can be very difficult as they are expensive. If your planning on a service like fiver, then how will you maintain your branding in all areas with inexperienced designers?
To attract attention to your site and to gain recurring visitors/subscribers, you need really quality content and to build a recognisable brand. My concern with this is that you would be leaving this to a bunch of freelancers.

UniLad and other big brands also need a website to make money from adverts. This will need a design and to have good SEO.

How will you get traffic from Facebook to your 3rd party website? This is how your planning on making money but I think this is a huge issue. If you uploaded videos to Facebook, people will comment and like but how many will go to your site direct? You'd probably need to write articles, but then you also need quality content, otherwise this could result in your brand being viewed negatively... so more freelancers?

I haven't even started on the financing issues with this but already your nearly out of money and have no marketing budget.

If I were you, I would try my best to sort my job out and get paid enough to earn money and have extra time, I would look for a partner who is a designer to go 50/50 with (although you might struggle as it sounds like they would do most of the work!) This way you can spend your money on marketing and strategy. Then again, if I were you I wouldn't bother because I am a graphic designer and I know this is a lost cause.

It sounds like your ambitious and you will probably get somewhere with an idea at some point, but I don't think it's this idea. Good luck, if you do go ahead with it, I hope you prove us all wrong!

 

[Kat Haylock]

Hi @Jamie64,

Please remember it's against UKBF rules to re-open a thread more than 3 months old. This stops the boards being filled with old, out-of-date content. If you'd like to continue a discussion, please start a new thread by finding a forum and using the Post New Thread tab.

Thanks!

 

[The Byre]

Please remember it's against UKBF rules to re-open a thread more than 3 months old.

Now there's me, being thick again - but if this is an issue, what is wrong with adding a simple script to the forum that locks threads that are over three months old? There are all sorts of plug-in libraries for forums that have this feature.

 

[Karimbo]

I would prefer not to automatically lock, it should be applied on case by case basis. SOme discussions are timeless, other discussions expire - e.g. on this instance the OP was looking for specific advice for their situation so the reply was probaby out of date

 

[Kat Haylock]

Hi,

As discussed in this thread, there's a plug-in that'll lock threads X number of days after the last reply, which seems worth testing. We're just waiting to see what's in the latest Xenforo software update, then we'll look at adding anything that's missing.

 

[Karimbo]

lazy I agree with UKSB. Some threads are timeless and should be left open. This thread is not and should be locked.

 

[woodss]

My bad - didn't check the post date....

 

[Karimbo]

My bad - didn't check the post date....

your original reply was hilarious, given the discussion just above. I have a copy of your message in my email alert. I will save you the embarrassment.

 

[woodss]

Embarrassment? Everything I said was valid - please post and enlighten everyone to the contrary though...

All I said (in a nutshell) was, fire up a cheap hosting package, install wordpress + some analytics and adwords plugins then promote the crap out of it. No need for a 5 grand outlay, and even if it sucks at least they'd get a feel for its viability before they dig further into the hole they're in.

What's wrong with that?