Start a Micro BusinessA blog for startups

Put Your Wallet Away

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The first thing most people do when they decide to start a business is start spending money. DON’T! Avoid spending at all cost.

How to avoid spending

1) An obvious first is to use your home as your business location.

2) Try getting by with office supplies you’ve got laying around the house - vs. running out to Office Depot or Costco to stock up.

3) Do you really need business cards? If someone needs your contact info, can’t you just write it down for them?

4) Use furniture that you already own. Even if it’s a fold out table - it’s still a table.

The only thing you might need to spend money on is a prototype.

Prototype

If you are selling a product, you may need to spend a bit of money building the first version of your product - your prototype.

Don’t go crazy though.

For instance, say you’re selling ’scrapbook pages’. You may try rationalizing things - like going out and buying a die cut machine to help build your prototype. DON’T!

Get creative - grab a razor blade from your garage and cut out the shapes for your prototype by hand.

Profits before expenses

Once you have your prototype, take pictures of it and upload them to your website. Also, take your prototype around to local craft stores.

Get an order for 500 pages, and then use your profits to buy the die cut.

If you can learn to purchase things only AFTER you’ve made sales, you’ll be light years ahead of most startups.

Cash flow

Cash flow is a business term used to describe how much money is coming in and going out of your business.

When you start your business, you’ll likely be cash flow negative - this means you’re spending more money than you’re making.

But if you don’t spend anything, you can become cash flow positive very quickly. This is a huge benefit of staying small.

Make it a game

Learn to spend as little as possible. Make a game out of it. See how little you can spend while starting your business.

Advantages

Starting out frugal helps you:

1) Face less risk should your business fail.

2) Stay thrifty throughout the life of your business

3) Weather the storm - should you ever experience a lull in sales.

Summing up

Make due with what you have. If you absolutely don’t need it, don’t buy it.

Leveraging Technology

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One of the main thoughts behind the SimpleStartup movement is to leverage technology so that starting a business becomes easier.

As you’ll see, SimpleStartup was designed to do just that.

With SimpleStartup you’ll be able to:

* Quickly start your own business
* Launch an e-commerce enabled website
* Manage sales transactions
* Manage customers
* Manage your business taxes
* Track marketing effectiveness
* Track sales goals
* Plus much more

SimpleStartup was designed to help everyday people start and manage their entire business. It’s easy to use, easy to understand and best of all it’s affordable.

But don’t take our word for it - Check it out for yourself.

Small is back

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Before television and other mass media technologies came along, it was okay to be small.

Mass media changed everything. When millions of people could be reached simultaneously through advertising, companies got big - quick.

And in order to compete with them, you had to get big too.

But that’s no longer the case.

Their downfall

Big companies got greedy. They started applying mass media techniques to everything - billboards, magazine ads, newspaper ads - they plastered their ads everywhere.

Over time, people got fed up and stopped paying attention. They started tuning out the noise.

As a result, mass media lost its edge – and is no longer effective.

Trust marketing

Mass media lost its edge for one reason – lack of trust.

Trust is the key

Now, more than ever, it’s important for your customers to trust you.

If you spam them - you’ll lose their trust.

If you plaster your ads everywhere - you’ll lose their trust.

If you harass them with phone calls - you’ll lose their trust.

Moreover, if you don’t listen to them - you’ll most definitely lose their trust.

What does this mean for you?

It means that you now have the upper hand.

As a micro-business, you can avoid making these mistakes.

Most big companies are trapped in a vicious cycle. They’re losing customers left and right and their only solution is to spam them, plaster their ads everywhere and harass them with phone calls.

Like I said, they’ll catch on sooner or later. But for now, you’re small company has the advantage.

Productivity

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It’s essential to your success. Seriously! You absolutely need to learn how to manage your time.

Prioritization is the key

Since your time is limited, you’ll need to learn how to focus your efforts.

Moms, you no doubt already have this attribute nailed.

The 80/20 Rule

In order to run a successful home business, it’s important that you understand the 80/20 rule (also known as the Pareto principle). Basically it states that:

* 80% of work in a company is done by 20% of the people
* 80% of your revenue will come from 20% of your customers
* People spend 80% of their time with 20% of their friends
* People wear 20% of their clothes 80% of the time

This rule applies to just about everything.

So… In terms of your home business, you’ll want to eliminate the 80% of work that makes little impact and focus on the 20% that does.

Focusing on the 20%

So, how do you find the 20% that matters?

Well, I suggest making two lists.

First, a list for your daily routine - arrange your tasks in order of importance: E.g. Process payments, Package orders, Check email, Check web stats.

This way if you only have 15 minutes available one night, you’ll know which items absolutely need to get done, and which can wait until tomorrow.

Second, take 15 minutes each weekend and make a list of items - other than those in your daily routine - which you need to accomplish in the following week.

Applying this rule

So… If you’ve decided to dedicate 2 hours each night to your company, you’ll start at the top of your list each night and work your way down. When your two hours is up, you’ll stop working. And that’s it. It’s that simple.

Breaking down larger tasks

Learn to break every project into small achievable tasks.

Instead of tackling one huge task, break it down into ten smaller tasks.

Then prioritize those ten small tasks, and get to work. Before you know it, you’ll have completed all ten.

The changing face of business

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SimpleStartup was originally created for stay-at-home moms. But its methodologies can be used by just about anyone wishing to start a company with limited resources.

Wait, did you say, “start a company with limited resources”?

Umm… yep. I know those words are seldom used together, but things are different now. There’s a change taking place in business.

A change?

Many people have not caught on - but it’s now possible to start a business without having to:

• - spend a lot of money
• - spend all of your time
• - put kids in daycare
• - mortgage your home
• - quit your day job
• - or risk your life savings

I’m talking about a faster, simpler, easier way to start and run your own business.

Is this a pitch?

This is starting to sound like some sort of sales pitch!

I know - I’m sorry, but its not - I swear! It’s not a pitch - it’s an education. Stay with me here, this is big - and it’s going to change our world.

Small is in

Starting a business is easier now than ever. In fact, today you can start a business with only a couple hundred dollars.

In the past, most companies had to get big - fast - in order to survive. Today that is no longer true.

Small companies have advantages - less bureaucracy, less of an investment (both time & money), and less of a risk to you the entrepreneur.

End result… Small is good.

Clarification

When I say small, I mean it. We’re talking zero employees here – a company run solely by you.

There’s no need for employees where we’re heading. Employee’s force you to get big - and we want to stay small.

The SimpleStartup Philosophy

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You owe it to yourself to do something remarkable someday. Why not start today?

Fear of Failure

Let’s get this out of the way.

Entrepreneurship can be a great source of personal achievement - but it can also be a source of failure. There’s no real way to eliminate the failure aspect. The best thing to do is acknowledge it, and simply keep moving forward.

Moving forward

Whether you are selling products or offering services, SimpleStartup will give you the knowledge you need to start your own business. It’s a bare bones approach, but by the end of your journey, you’ll have learned absolutely everything you need to know.

You’ll also learn how to manage your business so that it never consumes your life. This is core to the SimpleStartup movement.

A movement

SimpleStartup is a movement. Its goal is to make starting and managing a business, well… simple.

Our role will be to eliminate as much stress and confusion from the process as possible.

Your role then, is simply to start.

Motivations

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There are a number of reasons why I’m launching SimpleStartup.

1) I saw the need – Starting a business is hard - especially if you’ve never done it before. So, I set out to build a set of tools and resources to make it easier.

2) I like meeting new people – One of the best ways to meet new people is to share what you know. I happen to know a lot about small business & entrepreneurship, so that’s what I enjoy sharing.

3) Anyone can start a business – It doesn’t matter how old you are, how much money you have, or where you live. Technology has made entrepreneurship accessible to everyone.

4) I’m sick of all the small business scams – They are everywhere these days. You deserve a chance to start a legitimate, profitable business, and you shouldn’t have to sacrifice everything to do it.

My goal is to help you understand how to run a successful business - whether you take action or not is then up to you.