start up without or with little capital

[davezzr]

no disrespect to andy but 400 squid,less printing (even off his home printer) and footwork delivering however many wont give the op the time to do his part time job and his studies.
if i were to be approached for a £20 ad in a booklet id be inclined to ask how many are to be distributed! our local monthly booklet of similar description is delivered to 5000 homes and costs about three times the price for a small ad. i have seen these local booklets come and go over the years and its all down to value for money for the advertiser,if he/she aint getting a return then her/she aint gonna keep advertising



nice little story some of the old timers here will remember a lad who would come up with wild ideas needing huge sums of money. after he was shot down in flames and generally put down in a positive way,would run off in tears only to return a few weeks later sometimes under a new guise with equally if not more oulandish claims and wanting even more money. he really new how to cheer us up (wonder where he is now)

 

[movietub]

no disrespect to andy but 400 squid,less printing (even off his home printer) and footwork delivering however many wont give the op the time to do his part time job and his studies.
if i were to be approached for a £20 ad in a booklet id be inclined to ask how many are to be distributed! our local monthly booklet of similar description is delivered to 5000 homes and costs about three times the price for a small ad. i have seen these local booklets come and go over the years and its all down to value for money for the advertiser,if he/she aint getting a return then her/she aint gonna keep advertising

Interesting the way that printed media relying on advertising has suffered against online competition. We used to rely heavily on printed advertising which was a real pain. The bottom line was that we were never very sure how effective each ad was. We had a rough idea of course, but not exactly accurate! I also think we stuck with certain publications because we felt we had to be in them. I really don't think we got value for money very often.

Now we advertise mostly online and we know everything about how effective each ad is. Analytics tells us how many people came from which ad and how much money they spent with us. How much profit, even.

I think this has flipped the whole value propisition on it's head. Online if you are trying to sell adverts no amount of BS will help you. Either the space you sell makes the advertiser a profit each month or they're gone.hinking back 10 years ago, I never imagined the day that I could basically gaurantee that £50 a month spent somewhere would definitely make me £200 by return. Or more in fact. We typically take out ten new ads a month these days. The ones that fail get dropped and their money gets diverted to the ones that succeed.

 

[AndyAndy]

no disrespect to andy but 400 squid,less printing (even off his home printer) and footwork delivering however many wont give the op the time to do his part time job and his studies.
if i were to be approached for a £20 ad in a booklet id be inclined to ask how many are to be distributed! our local monthly booklet of similar description is delivered to 5000 homes and costs about three times the price for a small ad. i have seen these local booklets come and go over the years and its all down to value for money for the advertiser,if he/she aint getting a return then her/she aint gonna keep advertising



nice little story some of the old timers here will remember a lad who would come up with wild ideas needing huge sums of money. after he was shot down in flames and generally put down in a positive way,would run off in tears only to return a few weeks later sometimes under a new guise with equally if not more oulandish claims and wanting even more money. he really new how to cheer us up (wonder where he is now)

I like the way, for some reason, I reminded you of a guy who would come up with wild ideas and then run off in tears.

Like I said it was just an idea. I think with these types of forums its all about throwing ideas around and then hoping the OP improves them

 

Going back to the OP....yes is the simple answer, if you look at doing something compatible with your budget.

You cannot open a retail outlet without dosh, but there are many things you can do with little or no money......if you are prepared to put the effort in.

If you look at gardening or handy-man services, as your own example, it is easy to set up initially.

Get yourself a few A5 flyers printed up, even do these yourself, and put them up in shops, Post Offices, Garages, etc...anywhere that people might see them (local gym, community centre, oap drop-in centres, etc, to get the older folk who might be more likely to need your services).

Once you start to get a little work, then ensure you leave every initial client as happy as you can, even at the expense of your time (you will find out later that it is impossible to please everyone, but let them walk over you initially if needs be)....this will get you word-of-mouth referrals which are golden in that type of work.

Only when you have some work coming in can you afford to look at a little insurance, and maybe some decent business cards and flyers.

Don't get fooled into expensive advertising initally - it is always best to let existing work pay for this.

The above method will work, it has proved to, but you cannot sit back and wait on it coming to you (which is the biggest mistake people make really).....you have to pro-actively go get the work yourself, and always try to organise your marketing and advertising/leaflet distribution when you are busy, so it brings work in for when the work peters out.

 

[movietub]

Going back to the OP....yes is the simple answer, if you look at doing something compatible with your budget.

You cannot open a retail outlet without dosh, but there are many things you can do with little or no money......if you are prepared to put the effort in.

If you look at gardening or handy-man services, as your own example, it is easy to set up initially.

It's very true. It's not just something people say either, I have done the above twice. My first official business venture was started with £200 of Google Adwords advertising, that was all I had to hand after being fired from my full time job! I needed a web site so I read up and built one. I was just going round cleaning ponds for a living. Then I targetted the adwords campaign on the Surrey area and started charging £500 a day for pond cleaning (two of us by that point). In the end I took on too many large jobs too soon and eneded up bankrupt - I was stuck in the middle of a project with escalating costs for some russian 'business men...' and they were either going to sue me and ruin me, or I was going to declare bankrupcy myself. I will admit that was a bit of a snag in my career

Anyway, back on my ars*e I setup again with £500 pounds, again with a website, but this time an ex member of staff as a business partner. That was 4 years ago and the difference now is chalk and cheese. I would never be so stupid again - although I accept that stupidity will always be a threat to my cosy existence! That's fine so long as I maintain the drive to cope with it.

But for sure a handful of coppers is enough to get started. Getting started, however lowly the beginings is clearly the fastest route to getting 'somewhere' better.

It's odd, but a couple of months ago we rented a new unit on the basis that we *may* have a use for us in a few months time. It's empty now. The logic is simple, if we end up needing it for planned expansion we couldn't afford for it not to be available for us - in short it's a gamble, but the odds are in our favour. I compare that to the beginnings, and it's mind blowing. There are people on here every week wondering if they can afford to rent their first premesis, and here I am, same mentality as when I started but with more resources I can rent a spare one as a punt on a future that may never happen. This is actually no more of a gamble than the £200 I spent on the first website, by comparison.

So I guess the question is not 'can you start with a little money', but rather, do you have the conviction in your own ideas to invest in them yourself? Or are you scared? Or do you believe, in the cold light of day, that your idea is not quite worth the risk? Are you yourself worth the risk?

If a person believes in their idea, if they are deadly serious, then they would beg/borrow the money to get it going and not have the time to worry about it, they would be too busy.

 

You have hit the nail on the head Movietub...... it is the 'effort' attribute that a lot lack. If you have belief, and effort......then you will definitely have a much better chance.

Oh....you are the 'big tank' man....I remember now....how is that all going?

 

[movietub]

You have hit the nail on the head Movietub...... it is the 'effort' attribute that a lot lack. If you have belief, and effort......then you will definitely have a much better chance.

Oh....you are the 'big tank' man....I remember now....how is that all going?

Next job at Elstree Studios, next month, someone very 'notable' is going to be wind surfing against a wind machine on it's surface. Before, predictably for comedy value, falling in and looking like a tit.

How far I've come

Been playing with water cannons this week though, far more interesting actually. Did you know that if you fire a football out of such a device it can be clocked at 120mph?

But yes, it's going really well on the TV/exhibition front. It's something I wanted to be involved in since I was a kid watching special effects on Dr Who. And the only reason I got in there was because I built the tank, and I could only do that using funds from the main business activities. As with everything else, the tank could have been tens of thousands of pounds worth of mistake. So I really 100% agree that you have to believe in your own judgement to be correct at least the majority of the time before you go wasting money. There is a massive difference between being prepared to fail and statistically being likely to fail!

 

Good to hear it's all going well, your business stuck in my mind after all this time, it is kinda unique

We use a lot of those oul water-cannons over here, but for less pleasurable tasks

 

[movietub]

Good to hear it's all going well, your business stuck in my mind after all this time, it is kinda unique

We use a lot of those oul water-cannons over here, but for less pleasurable tasks

Ha! I was in Belfast a few months ago actually and it does have the air of uncertainty about it again... Then back over the border I got bollocked for referring to southern Ireland as 'Eire' by a site manager that then got very irritated when I asked him why the postage stamp on the Purchase Orders he sends us says Eire on each one :|

As with all Englishmen, I have returned home once more not entirely sure why everyone is so angry with me over there, apparently most of it stemmed from 700 years ago. I was even more unsure as to why the Guiness over there is £5 a pint but is £2.50 over here once it's made the journey, on a truck, on a ferry, operated by a company in Dublin next to the guiness factory.

Anyway, whatever the situation, I assure you that pressing the fire button on a water cannon is always pleasurable on some level

 

[MASSEY]

I have to agree with davezzr, people probably won't be interested. 20 quid can get you a decent sized ad in a newspaper that will be likely to get read by people who could do with what the ad offers.