SteveRS Posted July 19, 2011 Share Posted July 19, 2011 Hi guys, Have you got your own business? How did you start? I really want to set up my own business, but have no idea how to go about it. Obviously you need to provide a service or sell products. Selling a product or products appeals to me more. Any pointers would be great. Thanks in advance for the advice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rtbiscuit Posted July 19, 2011 Share Posted July 19, 2011 start small and work up, to be honest my business is more a hobby, and pays for my other hobby; cars i think my initial investment was £200 of my own cash, i also used a fair wack more but thats becuase i have also reinvested back into the business. at the end of the day, if i stopped i won't have lost anything and still have my day job to return to. or if it picks up i can cut back on the day job and increase the hobby. i have long term plans and goals but its a case of doing it when i can and when i can afford to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyboy Posted July 19, 2011 Share Posted July 19, 2011 +1 Pick something you have an interest in, something you enjoy, and have experience of. I started with £1000 in a chicken shed and 6 years later was supplying Grand Design staircases for the rich and famous including the King of Bahrain (for the Bahrain Air Show) and turning over £600,000 per year. I sold that business a year ago and it went bump last week. As well as your business idea and skills its all about the people. Employ wisely once you are big enough, and pay for the best you can afford. People are a companies biggest asset. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bockaaarck Posted July 19, 2011 Share Posted July 19, 2011 +1 Pick something you have an interest in, something you enjoy, and have experience of........As well as your business idea and skills its all about the people. Employ wisely once you are big enough, and pay for the best you can afford. People are a companies biggest asset. Nail on the head, these points are more important than almost anything else Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tarmac@TarmacSportz Posted July 19, 2011 Share Posted July 19, 2011 Its a good question... theres a lot of people who can offer you good advice on here Its got to be something that interests you, you have to be dedicated and its good to have a niche market or offer something other people don't. You have got to put the hours in too, when its your own business then it doesn't stop for weekends, doesnt stop outside 9am-5pm and doesnt stop when your poorly... Occasionally stops for stag doos Be prepared for lots of accounting VAT returns TAX returns and spam spam spam in your inbox.... But its not all bad, ive grown up in customer service and logistics so I try to ensure people have a pleasant buying experience and in turn it makes me feel happy when the customer is happy. I would also make sure you don't run before you can walk. So far I have not took a penny out of Tarmac Sportz, im looking at the first year as a learning curve, re-investing the money into this business and not taking any risks.. Ive learnt already that there are a lot of surprises and what you think is a great product and will sell loads of is not always going to be the case... and vice versa... my mate bought a thousand 'pets at home' dog leads cheap to sell on ebay... 12 months on and he still has 997 left ... Ive asked the guys on here what they want, asked for group buy suggestions etc.... they know what they want more than I do so why not ask them.. These are just my experiences, there will be plenty more people on here with far greater business knowledge than I have but if you can use anything ive put then thats something.. Good luck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rtbiscuit Posted July 19, 2011 Share Posted July 19, 2011 Be prepared for lots of accounting VAT returns TAX returns and spam spam spam in your inbox.... : i've actually grown a liking for it this whole expereience has been a learning curve either for this business to expand or for a new venture in the future. i've really enjoyed tracking where everything goes, creating a brand image, and all the other little things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tarmac@TarmacSportz Posted July 19, 2011 Share Posted July 19, 2011 Be prepared for lots of accounting VAT returns TAX returns and spam spam spam in your inbox.... : i've actually grown a liking for it this whole expereience has been a learning curve either for this business to expand or for a new venture in the future. i've really enjoyed tracking where everything goes, creating a brand image, and all the other little things. Yeah but don't you have a mug at work that says ' I Love Spreadsheets ' on it ? Theres not much to like about VAT returns, I would opt out if I could Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyboy Posted July 19, 2011 Share Posted July 19, 2011 I would add that you should treat your £1000 turnover business like its £1,000,000 from day one, put your systems in place early on, order numbers for written purchase orders, sales order numbers for sales, order acknowledgements, expense claim forms and records, once you have staff even if its only one person, holiday forms, sickness records etc. Once you employ 20 people the systems will be there already, and the VAT, and NI will be easy because it will all be recorded, from day one. Your accountant will love you because he is used to getting a cardboard box once a year with everything in and will be able to spend his time reducing your tax bill rather than finding your petrol receipts. God was I really that Anal Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyser Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 I would add that you should treat your £1000 turnover business like its £1,000,000 from day one, put your systems in place early on, order numbers for written purchase orders, sales order numbers for sales, order acknowledgements, expense claim forms and records, once you have staff even if its only one person, holiday forms, sickness records etc. Once you employ 20 people the systems will be there already, and the VAT, and NI will be easy because it will all be recorded, from day one. Your accountant will love you because he is used to getting a cardboard box once a year with everything in and will be able to spend his time reducing your tax bill rather than finding your petrol receipts. God was I really that Anal My accountant does love me - Well she better had she married me I hate the paper work TAX returns etc so I let the wife do all that (I'm such a nice guy ) My advice would be watch your cashflow and budget carefully I found the banks would not lend me more than £1k when I started (now I don't need it they want to extend my overdraft facility ) Other than that as above put the hours in, work hard, keep a track of everything and hopefully you'll get there. Good luck hope it all works out for you Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarnie Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 I'd totally disagree about find something that interests you. I have three business, all of which either bore me senseless or I have zero interest in the products it sells. What floats my boat is; PROFIT Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveRS Posted July 20, 2011 Author Share Posted July 20, 2011 Some great advice here guys My main problem is finding something especially something Im interested in. Ideally I'd like to work from home or a small premises to start with. Where do you start with get products to sell? Are there wholesalers things like that? I'm already self employed as a Decorator, I've been doing it professionally now for about 8 years or so, I've won awards in the past also. So I'm already familiar with filling out tax returns. I've been sub contracting to the same builder for the duration and I don't get any of the benefits from running my own business, such as profit etc. I get a day rate and that's it, this also hasn't changed for the past 4 years! I'm bored of the job and at a dead end, there isn't money to be made doing it as I have found out. Its always been my dream to have my own business and I love a challenge and like to keep busy. It's just finding what type of business to go into. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sasha@lazytrips Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 I'm currently in the process of starting up having registered my company and being in the process of setting up a lot of the constituent parts. My business will probably differ from most in that I am not buying/selling stuff, but instead offering an alternative online service, so the model will be very different. Ultimately, the one thing I am learning is that there is no substitute for hard work. As plain and obvious as it sounds, nobody gets anywhere without grinding it out. My business revolves around travel and I am quite passionate about that. I would probably side with some of the above and say that if you are passionate about what you do as well as the profit side, then the drive early on is easier to get. There is nothing harder than pushing yourself to keep grinding at 11pm on a rainy tuesday night when you haven't seen even a penny of income for the first month or so of operation. I'm also looking forward to all the accounting, etc. Here's hoping that my maths background with a solitary accounting module at uni should be enough for the first year's returns, etc as I don't have the money to hand over to an accountant to do it for me If anybody is interested, only the blog part of the site is up at the moment @ http://www.mapmydream.com with a lot of development on the main part of the site in progress. Watch this space Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rabbitstew Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 Setting up a business is very hard. First you have to think of an idea which can make money, research it, see who the competitors are etc. Then setup the business - buy stock in, advertise, try to sell, and hopefully you start to get some money coming in. Its not until you start turning over good volume that you will see profits. The risk then is that a bigger competitor will just come in and under cut you and put you out of business. Ive had several small business`s which could have gone further but I just didnt have the size or money to push them. The last business I had was selling speed camera detectors. I was buying them straight from the supplier and knocking out loads to owners clubs. I was selling them cheaper than the main competitors because I had less overheads and I was the only supplier in the area where I lived. My profit on each item was not great, I had to sell 6 units to pay for a small advert in the back of the main car / motorbike magazines. Where it all went wrong was when a big competitor just came in and undercut my prices so I couldnt compete - they bought in larger volume than me and so could afford to do this. They also then setup resellers in my area to directly compete with me and just put me out of business. Since then ive got more into selling stuff on ebay, but even there any business ideas are short lived. Once you sell a product on there, everyone else just does the same but cheaper than you. Where you would be okay is if you had a unique product, or a service which people can not easy copy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tarmac@TarmacSportz Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 Too true, you have to keep re-inventing the wheel. I've sold products on here that no-one else was selling, soon enough they see they are going well and jump on the band wagon and undercut you... I've probably done similar myself though, dog eat dog I suppose. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
docwra Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 My advice? Run someone elses business for about 6 years before starting your own, learn how to do it without the risk The best advice I can give anyone starting a small business these days is to record what you have been doing - any business from a 1 man decorator to a 3000 person spacecraft production facility needs to be on top of its financials,a nd the biggest one of them is billable time vs cost. Keep a diary, note down everything you do over the course of a day, and at the end of the week (or month) sit down and get your books bang up to date with ins and outs. Compare this against your billable/non billable hours, you get a much better picture for where the business is heading and it also makes improving processes and procedures a lot more straightforward. The biggest pitfall Ive seen from people starting out is simply not working hard enough, as they think they are making more money than they actually are. EDIT: I dont want to sound harsh but deciding you are going to start a business then thinking of what you are going to do is definitely the difficult way - much better to have the idea, product or experience first IMO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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