As my username suggests, I’m at the earliest stages of getting my start up going, and one of the biggest headaches I’ve had so far has simply been doing the preliminary research. I know it will prove small fry in comparison to future problems, but I thought I’d share anyway.
It’s not that there’s a shortage of information, but rather that there’s a complete oversupply. It seems almost anyone who’s ever sold a second hand toaster on eBay has written a book on how to become an entrepreneur and make an instant million. It’s impossible to know where to start or to dig the quality advice from the random rubbish.
I wasted a good few weeks religiously reading every article and visiting every website only to realize most of it was…
a. Repetitive
b. Assumes you’re a moron
c. Assumes you’re a genius who’s sitting on the next Facebook and planning a start up to make Bill Gates look amateur. Don’t get me wrong, I am ambitious, just not delusional.
d. Written like a self help manual (‘believe in yourself and you can do anything’ style stuff. Gag.)
So I’m feeling a bit guilty about adding to the start up clutter with my own little blog, and by way of an apology I thought it might be helpful to cut through some of it with a short list of the most useful sources I found. The list really is very, very short. That’s not because there weren’t some other good guides, but I really believe a thorough browse of the below will leave you with a passable picture of what’s involved and a practical plan of action.
So, if you read one...
...book make sure it's:
Starting and Online Business in the 'for Dummies' series.
It's geared to a US audience and the case studies are terminally boring. But it's easy to use, doesn't patronize, is comprehensive enough to get you going but not so detailed it leaves you lost.
...official website make sure it's:
NOT the .gov Business Link, one of the most confusing, ill thought out sites ever. Especially bad, given that it's billed as a “beginners guide”.
I guess they're hampered by having to cater for everyone, but even allowing for that it's almost impossible to root out the key facts in amongst all the repetition and poorly structured topic headings.
I suspect there's a lot of important information on the site, but you're better off going back to it once you've got a list of tax code questions you need answering. Ditto the HMRC site.
http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/
A better alternative is the BBC guide. It's not exactly imaginative, and the info is very generic, but a glance at the topic list gave me a good guide to what to start thinking about and the information is presented in plain English. Good old Beeb.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/consumer/start_a_business/
...unofficial website make sure it's:
The Young Entrepreneur blog. It’s a little American and there are too many references to 'finding your life's purpose' for my taste, but hidden underneath all the positivity are some tremendously useful articles on how to push a business site up the Google listings and info on which clicks are valuable and which aren't.
The nitty-gritty technical stuff won’t be relevant until I get to building the website and writing the copy, but it confronted me with some practical considerations before I got carried away with grand visions for a sexy site that won't get any hits.
http://www.youngentrepreneur.com/blog/category/internet-marketing
Hope the above helps and please post your short list.
Tuesday, 16 September 2008
Tuesday, 9 September 2008
So, hi I guess.
As anyone reading this will quickly realise, I'm new to this. And when I say 'this' I'm not just talking about blogging.
Three months ago I decided to start my own business. Since then I've discovered a whole new set of challenges, emotions, talents and, quite frankly, personal failings I had no idea existed. I'm just hoping the old adage of whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger proves true.
A particular biggie on the 'new emotion' front has been Frustration, one big source of which has been that I can't tell many people about my entrepreneurial ambitions. It wouldn't sit well with my current employer and would probably mean the end of my job.
My solution is to start a blog. I'm hoping it will give me the opportunity to share some of my start-up angst in anonymous, secret squirrel style.
Of course, I'm rapidly discovering that starting a blog brings a whole new set of paranoid angsts. What if no one reads it? What if people do read it but think I'm boring? How would I feel knowing there are hundreds of strangers out there, all across the world, who all read my blog and judge me 'boring'!?
Right now - hopefully not for too much longer - I work in advertising, so I’ve been institutionally conditioned to fear ‘boring’; it’s social leprosy.
As a child I didn't keep a diary. Whenever I looked over what I'd penned the day before I was shocked by just how mundane and insignificant the entry was. I blushed with the tediousness of my own pre-adolescent pretentiousness. And there's still a big chunk of my psyche that's screaming at me as a type; 'what the hell are you doing! They'll laugh I tell you, laugh!'
Still, the first thing I learnt when looking to start my own business is that you just have to get over any worries you have about people laughing at you. Because they will - your parents, your friends, potential suppliers. Even your cat will occasionally throw you a little narrow-eyed curl of the lip.
In fact, laughter has been one the best reactions I've had so far. The worst, and most common, is the 'well it's sweet that you still have dreams' smile that people give you when they don't want to crush your idea but are obviously thinking that throwing in a £50k a year job to focus on a hobby is just a little bit naive.
So that's what this blog is going to be about - the reality of taking that naive, slightly demented step into the unknown world of starting my own business. I'm not quite sure how it'll turn out (the blog rather than the business, though it's true for both), but it's likely to be a collection of the emotional and the practical. The why as well as the how. I'm as likely to cover the intricacies of tax codes for sole traders as what it's like to wake up at 4am in a cold sweat wondering if everyone you know thinks you're a looser.
Let me know if there's anything I should include. Like I said, I'm new to this, so all advice is welcome! Here goes...
Three months ago I decided to start my own business. Since then I've discovered a whole new set of challenges, emotions, talents and, quite frankly, personal failings I had no idea existed. I'm just hoping the old adage of whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger proves true.
A particular biggie on the 'new emotion' front has been Frustration, one big source of which has been that I can't tell many people about my entrepreneurial ambitions. It wouldn't sit well with my current employer and would probably mean the end of my job.
My solution is to start a blog. I'm hoping it will give me the opportunity to share some of my start-up angst in anonymous, secret squirrel style.
Of course, I'm rapidly discovering that starting a blog brings a whole new set of paranoid angsts. What if no one reads it? What if people do read it but think I'm boring? How would I feel knowing there are hundreds of strangers out there, all across the world, who all read my blog and judge me 'boring'!?
Right now - hopefully not for too much longer - I work in advertising, so I’ve been institutionally conditioned to fear ‘boring’; it’s social leprosy.
As a child I didn't keep a diary. Whenever I looked over what I'd penned the day before I was shocked by just how mundane and insignificant the entry was. I blushed with the tediousness of my own pre-adolescent pretentiousness. And there's still a big chunk of my psyche that's screaming at me as a type; 'what the hell are you doing! They'll laugh I tell you, laugh!'
Still, the first thing I learnt when looking to start my own business is that you just have to get over any worries you have about people laughing at you. Because they will - your parents, your friends, potential suppliers. Even your cat will occasionally throw you a little narrow-eyed curl of the lip.
In fact, laughter has been one the best reactions I've had so far. The worst, and most common, is the 'well it's sweet that you still have dreams' smile that people give you when they don't want to crush your idea but are obviously thinking that throwing in a £50k a year job to focus on a hobby is just a little bit naive.
So that's what this blog is going to be about - the reality of taking that naive, slightly demented step into the unknown world of starting my own business. I'm not quite sure how it'll turn out (the blog rather than the business, though it's true for both), but it's likely to be a collection of the emotional and the practical. The why as well as the how. I'm as likely to cover the intricacies of tax codes for sole traders as what it's like to wake up at 4am in a cold sweat wondering if everyone you know thinks you're a looser.
Let me know if there's anything I should include. Like I said, I'm new to this, so all advice is welcome! Here goes...
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