Freesourcing E-Book

Jonathan Yates

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 259

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

So you've got the drive to start a business. You might even have the Big Idea all mapped out. But then you realise that you've got no money to take it to the next stage. Back to the day job? No way. That's where Freesourcing comes in. Believe it or not, you don't need money to start a business. There's an entire industry out there waiting to help you take your idea and make it happen... for free.  All you need to know is where to find the help and how to get your hands on it.

Freesourcing is the definitive guide to free business start up resources, showing you exactly where to go and who to talk to when you're starting a business on a shoestring. Freesourcers don't just think outside the box - they find out where they can get the box for free too. You'll find information on free:

• Premises
• Money
• Computers
• Travel
• Online resources
• Stationery
• Advice and support
• Legal help
• Banking
• Networking opportunities
• Marketing and PR
• Stock

No cash? No problem. So what are you waiting for?

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Praise

Introduction

About This Book

Chapter 1 - Use What You Have

Time

Family, friends and your social network

What’s lying around?

The art of barter

Prices and negotiation

The entrepreneurial advantage

Chapter 2 - Setting Up the Foundations of Your Business

Elevator pitch

The legal entity

Using professional help

Business plan

A place to work

Pop Up Restaurant

Money

Travel

Sourcing equipment

Food for thought

Business cards

Making yourself look bigger than you are

Protecting your ideas

Chapter 3 - IT and Communication

Computer equipment

Getting on the Internet

Data storage and back-up

Email and website

Communication

Webinars

Template documentation

Professional business applications

Chapter 4 - Help, Skills and Training

Ask for help

Get new skills

Community skill sharing

Find a mentor

Motivate yourself

Chapter 5 - Research, Innovation and Prototypes

Research

Generate great ideas

Sell what you have

Get money to turn ideas into products

Start a business-to-business software company

White labelling

Getting stocked up

Chapter 6 - Customers, Brands, Marketing and Sales

Create your own brand

Find customers

Get publicity

Obtain testimonials

Read trade magazines

Benefit from an army of sales people

Get accredited

Attend exhibitions

Get paid in advance

Chapter 7 - Growth and Next Steps

Forms of growth capital

Some inspiration

Conclusion

Freestarts: More Businesses You Can Start for Free

The 10 Rules of Freesourcing

Glossary

Acknowledgements

This edition first published 2009

© 2009 Jonathan Yates

eISBN : 978-1-907-29307-8

Registered office

Capstone Publishing Ltd. (A Wiley Company), The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom

For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com.

The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered.

The publisher and the author make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising here from. The fact that an organization or Website is referred to in this work as a citation and/or a potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the publisher endorses the information the organization or Website may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that Internet Websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read.

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

9781907293078

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Set in 11.5 on 14 pt Calibri by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited

“It won’t be long before he gets a loyal following.”

Peter Jones, original member ofDragons’ Den

“The bottom line is: can he make a successful business? You know what? Of course he can.”

The Sunday Times

“Jonathan is living proof that whatever you put your mind to, you can achieve it.”

Deirdre Bounds, creator of i-to-i, the world’s largest gap-year travel company

“Jonathan has tremendous energy and drive. You can tap into some of that energy in his book.”

Sahar Hashemi, founder of Coffee Republic

“Jonathan is one of those rare individuals who has great business acumen as well as entrepreneurial insight. His passion to succeed is infectious.”

Mike Clare, Founder of Dream Beds plc

“The ideology of the Freeconomy movement is progression through the act of sharing and reuse. I am pleased to see Jonathan implementing similar strategies in his bookFreesourcing.”

Mark Boyle, founder of the Freeconomy Community

Introduction

You’ve had the big idea—well done! It’s taken absolutely ages to knock your epiphany into shape, but you’re sure this is the big one. Your current product development team—you, your mates, that shopping trip to the supermarket and the Internet research you did the other night at 2 a.m.—have been honing the business model down the pub for nearly two weeks and quite frankly, you can’t believe it hasn’t been done already. It’s so simple that someone else must have surely seen the opportunity? No, according to the Internet and the supermarket, you are the only one with this money-making idea that will change the way the world turns. It’s time to take the next step…but I bet you don’t.

You see, this is where the majority of business ideas stop. What a shame, what a waste and what a missed opportunity! Never mind, at least you can talk about what might have been and when someone mentions to you the new multimillion-pound concept that’s in the newspapers, you can always say you had the idea first. Then back to the pub for some creative idea generation.

The main problem seems to be motivation to spend your own money on getting the idea to the next stage. Inevitably you will question yourself and the idea: what if it fails, what will my development team think if everything goes pear shaped? And the classic excuse: I have no money to start a business.

This is where Freesourcing comes in. You don’t need your own money to start your business. What? Yes, that’s right, you can start a business right now with those two little friends I often call on, time and effort.

There’s an entire industry dedicated to helping you take your idea and do something with it. The secret is—and not many people get this bit, so hang on in there, as it’s a bit complicated—the secret is that entrepreneurship and innovation are the wheels that grease the entire UK economy and keep Britain Great. The government pulls out all the stops to help people with ideas translate them into start-ups and then into profitable businesses. It’s in the UK’s interest for you to make your idea happen; more than that, it’s your responsibility to make it happen. So what are you waiting for? Money?

Freesourcing is a definitive guide for free business start-up resources (freesources, geddit?). I will show you where to look for free help to start up your business and get it to a point where you can earn an income and take the idea to the growth stage on your own.

Freesourcers not only think outside the box, they wonder where they can get a box for free.

Large empty cardboard box—Would this be of any use to someone moving house? 27” high × 16” × 16”. Collection from XXX. Will discard after today if no replies. Cheers XXXXXX—from www.freecycle.org

Freesourcing covers free premises, free money, free computers, free legal help, free banking, free networking, free stock. In fact, apart from this book, which at £9.99 is a snip, you could build your empire with £0.

About This Book

This book is intended to help you start your business for free using the ideas, enthusiasm and resources that you already have at your disposal. The stuff lying around your house, your social network, your emotion and drive—all the things you have amassed in your life so far can be put to good use in helping you create a profitable and growing business venture. Do you really need money to make money or can you start for free on your quest for financial freedom? That is the aim of this book, the freesourcing quest for freedom.

What kind of business do you want to start? Are you looking to change the world or are you happy with just running a business that enables you to take control of your life? Is the business you intend to start going to take five days to get going or five years? This book covers all sorts of business empires—what they have in common is that they generate an income and are started with no money whatsoever.

Freesourcing is an ethic, an idea and a plan to create something from nothing. In a way, it means you have to regress to childhood and search out your creativity to enjoy using simple and free solutions to get your idea off the ground. People from all over the world have started businesses for free in a multitude of ways and I would like to share with you some of their strategies.

Most of the ideas in this book are free. What does free mean? Free means that a product or service is provided without, or is not subject to, a charge or payment. Free means not having to pay cash for something you need in your business. I stress the phrase “not having to pay cash”, because the freesourcer may have to pay in time or in kind where appropriate.

In the UK television programme The Apprentice, Sir Alan Sugar is always going on about minimizing costs. His success can be attributed to a keen eye for an opportunity and embracing cost savings and efficiencies at the most fundamental level of his business empire. This is part of the Freesourcing ethic. Most companies do this when they’ve been trading for a while: they turn the looking glass back on themselves and ask where they can be more efficient. In this book I suggest that you should start out like this and use freesourcing to grow. This is what an entrepreneur does.

Entrepreneurs are people who spend a few years of their life like some people won’t, the rest of their lives like some people can’t.

Be aware of the fact that there will always be some things you are unable to freesource. Each business start-up is different and there is no set process. The best advice when faced with something you need to pay for is to find a viable free alternative or find a way around it. Minimize cost at all junctions in the process—in other words, become an entrepreneur.

The word entrepreneur is used all over the media and is a catch-all term for anyone starting their own business, whatever the size.

Here are some widely recognized descriptions of entrepreneurs (taken from 100 All-Time Essentials for Entrepreneurs by Jonathan Yates, so giving me a free plug!). Which one are you?

Altrepreneur—Looks for a change of lifestyle and not just increased wealth. Their motivations are not for financial reward but a change of circumstances.

Mompreneur—Parents who stay at home and use the time between looking after and raising their children to begin and grow a business from home.

Wantrapreneur—A person who would like to start a business and is actively engaged in finding the right starting point.

Entrepreneur—An entrepreneur makes money out of ever-changing market opportunities fuelled by the enjoyment of making a profit.

Solopreneur—Individual entrepreneurs, in business for themselves, motivated by money and achievement and success on their own merit.

Ultrapreneur (or serial entrepreneur)—Someone who actively reinvests their money into ever larger business ventures, not solely for the financial gain but also for the enjoyment of the process.

Freesource(u)r—An entrepreneur who has started and grown their business with no money apart from that which the company has generated.

There is a certain amount of celebrity status associated with entrepreneurs and you get maximum credibility points if you can say you have started out on your own. But don’t just use the word, know what it really means. This book will help you understand one of the facets of being an entrepreneur, namely that you need to see an opportunity and take advantage of it, maximizing revenues and minimizing costs, which is the essence of keeping start-up costs to a minimum.

When using freesources, you might expect there to be a lack of quality. It does hold true that if you demand quality in a timely manner you need to pay for it, otherwise the benefits of a competitive capitalist business environment would not work. However, free does not always mean quality so strive to find quality freesources where you can.

You will notice as you read this book that each section ends with a Freeq statement. Freeq is the freesourcing equivalent quotient. It’s a mark of how much cash you will be saving by following the advice. Where possible, I have given a cash value that directly correlates to your saving. When this is not possible, I have used a time comparator for the freesource instead. However, in both cases remember that the Freeqs should not be taken as exact values but as a mark of where you should be looking to gain savings. The Freeqs I have chosen represent costs at the high end of the scale and better value may be achieved by shopping around.

As well as no-cost options, I have provided some excellent value low-cost options for you to have a look at as viable alternatives. And, if you’re stuck for ideas of what business to start, you’ll find many Freestart suggestions for businesses you can begin for free throughout the book, and particularly in Chapter 8.

How are you going to start your business for free?

1

Use What You Have

So you have an idea for a business, which is brilliant. I am truly very excited for you, as this is the moment when your creativity knows no bounds. This is when your senses are most heightened and the constraints on what you can do have not yet reared their difficult and ugly heads.

This is the moment the pathway starts to unfold in front of you and you can map out your future. Grasp this moment and ride the wave of creativity for as long as possible, learning and understanding what it means to be an entrepreneur on the way. This is your moment to use what you have to make it happen. Don’t leave that great idea lying on the table for another second, or it may slip away for ever.

In this chapter you will find out how to open your eyes and see what you have available to you immediately. It’s Day 1 and you have decided to take your idea forward. There are specific fundamentals that you must get your hands on to move one square at a time over the snakes and ladders board of your entrepreneurial journey.

The most appropriate way to begin is to collect together everything you have available to you right now. Look around the house, in your attic and in the garage and see what you already have. Take the opportunity to reappraise those things you’ve been meaning to throw away and see them in a new light, reflecting the creativity of your new idea. They may be bits of junk now, but how could they benefit your business? The same goes for everything in your life: friends, family, experiences, money and, most importantly, you.

The trick is to think creatively about your life so far, the experiences you have gained and the people you know. This is your starting point, so use what you have.

Time

Time is the greatest, most widely available and least expensive freesource you have at your immediate disposal.

You need to understand straight away that 100% of freesourcing has an actual cost. That cost is your time and a whole load of effort. You have to make adjustments to your life in order to create the time you need to start and grow your business. This is a simple but essential step.

You often hear the saying that time is not money, but actually it’s not. Time is a measurement of our progress through the universe, whereas money is a system of exchange. You need to view the link between time and money as a system of exchange with which to barter new assets to grow your business.

But do you have any spare time? Think back to the last time someone said they were too busy or there aren’t enough hours in the day. It wasn’t that long ago, was it? I bet you’ve said something similar in the last week or so.

There are 24 hours in a day and 60 minutes in an hour, which is 1440 minutes every day. What are you doing right this minute, right now, to benefit yourself? (I know, reading this book!) You should be asking yourself this question every minute of every day: What could I be doing in my freetime?

Here’s a test for you. What do you do with your 24 hours each day?

Note in the list below how much time you usually allocate to each activity:

Getting up Breakfast Lunch Dinner Travel Work Chores Watching TV Socializing Sleeping

What could you be doing with your day instead? There’s a difference between existing and living. Search out the spare minutes in your day and group them together to create a space for you to get something meaningful done.

What do you do with the time between your usual activities? What’s the first thing you do when you wake up? Make a conscious effort to be prepared for the day ahead, but do it the night before and prepare yourself for those things that will make this a “doing” day. Set your alarm 15 minutes earlier—it’s only 15 minutes’ less sleep, after all, but it could make all the difference.

What about when you’re travelling to and from work? Do you listen to a podcast on recent industry trends or do you read the free newspaper, then catch up on some sleep because you got up late again?

Do two things at once: go for a run to clear your head, get a bit fitter and listen to something useful on your MP3 player. Read trade magazines and always have the news on in the background. Learn to be creative with your time and let it work for you instead of continually chasing after it. Manage your time so you can do what’s important to you with an ongoing and ever-changing plan.

How do you make your time work for you? Organize your life simply by using lists, create efficient systems for doing things, set aside time for the difficult jobs and don’t just do the easy ones. Do the things you enjoy doing first to motivate yourself to do more.

We all get caught up in the difficulties of life and spread our time thinly by committing to coaching the junior rugby section or tidying up the garden. Apply some rationality and set aside the time you need to get your business running. Go to bed early and get up early—change your lifestyle to enable you to commit more time to getting your business running effectively. And remember always to spend quality time with your family, as they are your second greatest asset when starting a business.

Time is one thing you can trade freely because it’s yours, you are in control. You get to decide where you are going to be and what you are going to do while you’re there. You may not have any cash to buy goods and services, but you do have time.

People have been bartering time and effort for goods and services for eons, so revitalize those skills. Think about the cliché for what happens when you’re in a restaurant and you discover you’ve left your wallet at home: when the bill arrives, you start negotiating how much washing up you have to do before you can go home. This works for your business too.

To get the business moving, offer to work in a local shop for a morning and instead of the proprietor paying you any money, ask for something tangible that you need in return. Buy an axe so that you can go out to the local woods, take the free wood on offer from the council and chop it into kindling to sell on at £2 a bag. You could take the money you make and add it to your logo design fund or buy some more materials. Be creative in what you ask for, work hard and ensure good value for your time.

Get busy working on the things that matter and make a difference to the growth of your business right now!

Professional time management course, 1 day at £375.

Family, friends and your social network

Apart from you, your time and your amazing idea, the next greatest asset you have is your network.

Your family will always help where they can: they are unselfish and would always like to help you become a success in whatever you decide to undertake. Unfortunately, this act of selflessness in itself can be a hindrance, as they want you to succeed so much that they always think encouragement is the best advice, when perhaps from time to time you really need them to say no to one of your ideas.

Ask your family for financial help when you need it, and for assistance with getting your hands on the kit you have to have to carry out your business. Ask them as well for access to contacts and possible sales leads. And go to your family when you’re overworked and need a helping hand fulfilling a big order.

As a next step, you should increase your business “family” by extending the reach of your business and social networks.

People do business with other people. If you grow your network, you have more people to do business with.

Your social network is everyone you have ever spoken to, emailed, posted to in a forum, answered on Twitter, went to school with or done business with. It includes Glen down the pub, Barry, Stephanie and Paul who are parents at the kids’ school, and not forgetting Janet the babysitter. You get the idea: your social network is everyone and anyone you can refer to for advice because you have a history with them in one form or another.

Strangers are friends you have yet to meet.

A social network is a structure. The structure is made up of a collection of points that are connected by intersections such as values, visions, ideas, exchange, friendship and so on. In the real world this will be your network of friends, your family, customers and suppliers, investors and any club affiliations you may have. The key factor is that you all have something in common. In many instances, the thing you have in common is other people.

But a time will come when your current network has been exhausted and you have to explore new opportunities to grow the business. This is when you need to spend some time expanding both your business and social networks. There are numerous business networking clubs that may charge a joining fee so you can be part of their group. These clubs are great if you want to get to know a particular group of people well, but unless you’re joining as part of an active recruitment drive, you won’t necessarily be meeting many new people. Instead, I would look for casual groups of like-minded people who meet on a regular basis and can act both as support for your growing business and as an extended sales force who can recommend your products and services.

When I had a problem with hand packing an order for a large contract, I went to a mate at the squash club and asked whether I could use one of the courts as a manufacturing room, if they were not too busy. He asked the managers and then, although I had not asked for assistance, offered his and his friends’services for the entire weekend to come and help me out. The job was to create 5000 packs of goodies, take a silver envelope, put in a product and a flyer, close the envelope, add a sticker and put the envelope in a box. Although this doesn’t sound a lot, it takes a long time. Thanks to my free help, we finished 30 hours later and I was able to post the job to the customer on Monday, a day earlier than she had wanted. I bought my 10 helpers lunch in the form of 3 tons of pizza, which did cost me money, but the return on the contract was a lot more than £50. Thank you Harrogate Squash and Fitness.

The idea of a social network translates very well into the virtual world of the Internet, where you can find very large groups of like-minded people connected by their interests and their connections to other people. Whatever area your business is in, there will be someone out there who can help you understand more about your chosen topic. You just have to find them.

The following are some of the tools that can be used to connect to and grow your social network:

Audioboo, http://audioboo.fm

Blogger, http://www.blogger.com

Facebook, http://www.facebook.com

Friendfeed, http://friendfeed.com

iPadio, http://www.ipadio.com

LinkedIn, http://www.linkedin.com

MySpace, http://www.myspace.com

Ning, http://www.ning.com

Twitter, http://twitter.com

Wordpress, http://wordpress.org

Xing, http://www.xing.com

YouTube, http://www.youtube.com

There are many more sites popping up every day, but these are established and my own personal picks.

Recently LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter have become the tools of choice for business start-ups, so to help you get started there’s a little more on each of these below, together with the newcomer Audioboo.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) provides solid business networking. It acts as a central database connecting individual professionals together to share ideas, information and opportunities. There are currently around 40 million people actively registered on the site.

The main idea is that you create a profile and ask people you know well to link to you. When they link to you, you can see who they are connected to. They may be connected to someone you want to do business with, and if so you can ask for an introduction to this person through your initial LinkedIn contact. Simple. Now multiply this by 20 primary LinkedIn connections. That’s 20 people you know really well with anything between 10 and 1000 connections of their own. Can you see the power of this networking tool?

As a free tool, LinkedIn goes even further. You can search for people by company. In this search, you don’t even have to know who the people are, just which company you would like to do business with. The search will bring up all the people who work or who have worked for this company and are linked via your network, as well as how you can approach them. There’s even more! In order to contact anyone from a search freely, join a LinkedIn group particular to your business type (go to www.linkedin.com/groups to explore what’s available). When you next search for a contact, the first results will be those people who have joined the same group. The example here explains more.

I would like to introduce my new product to UK supermarkets, but have no idea who to contact. I could cold call and ask to speak to the widget buyer at a UK retailer, then introduce myself. That’s the traditional way. With LinkedIn I join the UK retail industry professionals group. I then search for the buyer in a particular company. I find, luckily, that she is in the same UK retail industry professional group, as is her boss and some of the people she works with. The search also brings up people who have previously worked with the company, one of whom I met by chance at an exhibition recently and is on my LinkedIn network already. I can contact the buyer with an email directly from LinkedIn and mention that I met the ex-colleague at a show and they liked the product and suggested I get in touch.

So as free services go, LinkedIn hits the nail squarely on the head.

Facebook

“Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life.” (from www.facebook.com)

Facebook has many benefits as a freesource. Mostly used by friends and families, it’s a great way to hook back up with old friends and get to know what they’re up to. You already have some history with these people from your past, so reacquaint yourselves and get to know how you might be able to help them and how they might be able to help you out as well. Those brothers in the year below you at school might well be property millionaires by now, so if they can help you, get back in touch.

You can set up a Facebook group to create a buzz around your business. If you have a new product to sell, start a Facebook group, get your friends to join and do a great deal for them if they buy direct from you. They might just buy the product out of interest to see what you’re up to, they might like the product and tell their friends, who might also buy the product. People are nosy and they love to know what you’ve been up to, so tell them!

You can see my Facebook profile at www.facebook.com/jonyates and, once you’ve joined, explore Facebook groups at www.facebook.com/grouphome.php.

Twitter

Twitter (www.twitter.com) helps you keep in touch with people who are interested in following what you’re up to. It’s a “microblogging” tool, which enables you to post information to a website or network in a concise form rather than the traditional endless reams of info in more established, unlimited blogs. The Twitter form of microblogging limits what you have to say to a mere 140 characters, which focuses your attention on what information you actually need to convey to make your post valuable. Of course, you have to gain followers, people who have consciously made the effort to follow your messages, but you can do this by handing out your Twitter username at every opportunity: on emails, on your business card and so on. Once you have a set of followers, you can inform them of the goods and services you offer.

Let’s have a look at an example.