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Just thought I'd throw my two cents in. I work for a company in the beta test management space (SaaS-based testing platform as well as a services group for outsourcing). Happy to answer questions about beta testing, validating product/feature ideas, etc.
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Oct 23, 2011 04:54
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I don't think the degree will matter that much. A startup will succeed or fail based on the product, your customers don't care if you have a Harvard PhD or if you dropped out of high school, they care about how good your product is. The skills you learn while getting the PhD may come in handy, and it may help you secure early funding, but that's about it. I would say networking is far more important than perusing a graduate degree if you want to found a startup.
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Oct 23, 2011 10:31
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TraderStav posted:I've always been curious what the scope of Entrepreneurship is considered 'startup'? Is it a term typically exclusive to internet startups, or just anyone who decides to start a business up on their own and just refers to the infant stages of any business? I'd say a startup is any business you think has the potential to grow rapidly. I wouldn't call a small landscaping business someone creates a 'startup'. Also, there is a serious distinction between services companies and product companies. A services company is limited in growth by the amount of contracts they can bring in, for instance building mobile apps or websites. A product company sells a product and tries to increase the potential market by modifying and improving the product, so there is a lot more potential for rapid growth.
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Oct 24, 2011 02:35
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Analytic Engine posted:How much credibility does having a PhD or Masters from an Ivy League school give you in the startup world, all other projects/skills being equal? If you have ideas and drive then is it more important to spend 2-3 years networking and working at startups in Boston/Cambridge/Silicon Valley than finishing a higher degree? If you're starting your own company then not much beyond maybe getting funded more easily. If you mean as an employee I'm sure a graduate degree at the very least couldn't hurt if you are on the technical side. An MBA is usually a positive, though some people in the community have a bias against it. Other programs are probably what you make of them and what type of skills/role you want and how you want to brand yourself. The blue chip hot startups definitely take more employees with prestigious backgrounds than not, but because most of the companies are so small and non-traditional that some networking and hustle can help overcome that hurdle. For all programs the opportunity cost (starting a company with loads of college debt instead of savings from working is frightening) has to be considered too.
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Oct 24, 2011 04:31
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I don't know if my business idea would be considered a startup (probably not) but what is a good way to get a significant (read: 10000+ sq/ft) sized building to house our operations in? The idea I have will require at least that much space from the get-go and no one I know is sure of the best way to get something of that size.
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Oct 30, 2011 09:56
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Hire a commercial realtor to find you something?
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Oct 30, 2011 17:50
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I didn't mean to find a place I meant to find money to buy/lease it.
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Oct 31, 2011 06:01
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First-employee-with-equity at a 3 year old tech agency here. Happy to help with my experience (UK.)
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Oct 31, 2011 16:03
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Turdpunch posted:Unless you have a natural flair for good design, CSS/HTML etc i wouldn't waste too much time trying to learn the skills to develop sites better than other bottom of the barrel outfits. Theres so many 'completed websites for £199' deals that its really not worth entering. Thanks for this feedback - I've been busy recently so not had a chance to step in and reply. Ideally I want to focus specifically on accountancy practices - pretty much the same as what these guys do http://www.accountantwebsmiths.co.uk/ - and this is how I'd compete with the other hundreds of similar firms because I'd have the content that's tailored for their businesses. I'm doing some courses through lynda.com so I am more familiar with everything really and also so I'm able to do any other work I can get my hands on whilst I build up clients for the accountancy side of thing. I have to say this is going a bit slower than I'd hoped due to life but I'm getting back in the swing of things now.
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Oct 31, 2011 20:54
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This in particular is more for a school project, but still applicable I think. How do I find out how much the average cost to build something should be? In this case I'm looking at refrigerators.
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Nov 1, 2011 00:18
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himurak posted:This in particular is more for a school project, but still applicable I think. How do I find out how much the average cost to build something should be? In this case I'm looking at refrigerators. First, decide on some quantity you are looking to make. Part components out as best you can with COTS parts. If you are dealing with a fridge maybe the compressor is off the shelf, the door hinges, or other components that you don't have to manufacture. Some things have price breaks for quantity so you may find it cheaper per unit to make a whole lot. Additionally if there are large amounts of custom work you need done it may be better to set up a factory and churn the buggers out then just making one offs. Add in an estimate labor costs that you need to pay such as machinists, technicians, inspectors, builders, and whoever actually builds/inspects your product. Factor in some sort of failure rate. Take the entire cost and divide it by the functional ones that come out and there is your cost to build. This is a pretty general framework, though you can make it fairly accurate if you are OCD enough about all the parts/labor costs. Also if you are doing an estimate always do worst case cost. Twerpling fucked around with this message at 01:04 on Nov 1, 2011 |
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Nov 1, 2011 01:02
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Twerpling posted:First, decide on some quantity you are looking to make. Part components out as best you can with COTS parts. If you are dealing with a fridge maybe the compressor is off the shelf, the door hinges, or other components that you don't have to manufacture. Some things have price breaks for quantity so you may find it cheaper per unit to make a whole lot. Additionally if there are large amounts of custom work you need done it may be better to set up a factory and churn the buggers out then just making one offs. Add in an estimate labor costs that you need to pay such as machinists, technicians, inspectors, builders, and whoever actually builds/inspects your product. Factor in some sort of failure rate. Take the entire cost and divide it by the functional ones that come out and there is your cost to build. Thanks a lot. This will make the project so much easier to price out. On a returned search I found something I'd rather buy then my groups product though here
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Nov 1, 2011 01:45
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Konstantin posted:I don't think the degree will matter that much. A startup will succeed or fail based on the product, your customers don't care if you have a Harvard PhD or if you dropped out of high school, they care about how good your product is. The skills you learn while getting the PhD may come in handy, and it may help you secure early funding, but that's about it. I would say networking is far more important than perusing a graduate degree if you want to found a startup. Depends what you want to do. If you get a PhD in machine learning and write the best data mining algos, then getting into a Big Data (see IA Ventures investment thesis) startup would be a great way to go. On the other hand, if your startup is not very technical (e.g., Groupon, Yelp), you would be much better off prototyping things on a napkin and talking to potential customers for 6 years.
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Nov 1, 2011 23:20
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poshphil posted:I'm doing some courses through lynda.com so I am more familiar with everything really and also so I'm able to do any other work I can get my hands on whilst I build up clients for the accountancy side of thing. I have to say this is going a bit slower than I'd hoped due to life but I'm getting back in the swing of things now. That's sort of my point - if your skillset lies in the accountancy side of things, why invest the time/effort into learning web design at such an early stage? You could offer a series of templates which look a hundred times better than the ones on the link you posted and you don't even have to buy them until someone signs up - this makes it possible to setup a site relatively quickly/cheaply to see how much interest you generate before devoting x months learning how to build sites. Play up to your skills not weaknesses. Turdpunch fucked around with this message at 13:52 on Nov 2, 2011 |
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Nov 2, 2011 12:56
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I'm not an entrepreneur, and know I'd make a bad one (I'm just not interested in working that hard, haha). But, I have worked for two startup software companies. In 2000, I joined a small pre-IPO company (~40 employees), which failed 9 months later as the dotcom boom collapsed and the VC (we had one major moneybags guy) decided to pull out. I then worked for a post-IPO startup (~450 employees when I started) for three years; at the end, it got purchased by a much larger company (not really "success" for anyone except the execs and initial funders, since the final price paid per share was far less than its peak and most employee's stock options were out of the money). Most of my friends live and work here in the SF bay area, for various software companies, and I've talked to them at length about the various failures and successes they've been through as well. Through these experiences, I have developed Opinions About Startup Failure that might be of interest. In particular, software startups. I don't want to be too specific about my previous employers, but I can talk in a more general sense about what the major successes and failures were. For the most part, these are failures that happen well after the initial rounds of bootstrapping, though, so I'm not sure how applicable it is for the folks in this thread. Any interest?
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Nov 2, 2011 19:49
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Leperflesh posted:Most of my friends live and work here in the SF bay area, for various software companies, and I've talked to them at length about the various failures and successes they've been through as well. I actually have another question. How do you like living in bay area as someone in the tech industry? I'm more interested in learning about the culture than the job opportunities, since those seem pretty plentiful. I'm on the east coast and have been slowly trying to break into the NY tech scene, but a small part of me has the urge to just pack up and move out west and give it a shot for a little bit. A VC told me he thinks that everyone in tech should give "mecca" a shot at least once so it really got me thinking about maybe doing it at some point. It's a huge mental hurdle to move across the country so I probably won't end up doing it for a while, but I can't even imagine having a bunch of people around to talk geek with who won't give perplexed looks when I bring my smartphone to check Yelp or check in somewhere on Foursquare (though I have also heard the lack of diversity can be obnoxious after a while).
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Nov 2, 2011 20:35
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I love it. I'm a native, though, so take that into consideration. Networking is big here, and a large percentage of my friends are people I originally met through various tech jobs. It's key for getting those tech jobs, as well (although not necessarily a requirement). As you might imagine, having a recommendation from another employee is a huge boost to landing a job at a given company. Lots of people think of the whole area as one homgeneous place, but actually the bay area is composed of neighborhoods and cities that have a lot of individual character. You're definitely going to have a different experience working in Cupertino or Sunnyvale, vs. working in San Francisco, vs. Palo Alto, and so on. The cost of living is high. Really high. But tech job salaries are also high. Some people who move here kind of get shocked at apartment prices or whatever and decide it's too expensive, before realizing that their entry-level programming job will pay $100k and it's (relatively speaking) not that bad. Of course, most people who live here are pretty much accustomed to paying more than 50% of our income for housing, too, when I guess 1/3 is more usual in other parts of the country. But. But! The weather is great, California is gorgeous (are you an outdoorsman? We have mountains, deserts, forests, beaches, rivers, etc. all over the drat place, much of it fairly unspoiled and most of it reasonably accessible). Our politics are a bit crazy (very liberal in the Bay Area in general, extra-liberal in Berkeley and SF, but somewhat conservative in outlying and wealthy counties, and very conservative in rural and southern counties) and our state is perennially "bugetarily challenged" mostly due to layer upon layer of direct-voter-enacted measures mandating spending combined with restrictions on taxes strangling the budget. The collapse in housing prices has put an extra-huge hurt on the state and also many counties, so services are being cut in some areas and our public schools are rapidly getting to be almost as expensive as they are in the east coast. But like I said before, it varies a lot by city/neighborhood. Palo Alto is one of the wealthiest cities in the country, but right across the freeway, East Palo Alto has at various times been the murder capital of the bay area. Richmond is also a hellhole of urban blight, and Oakland is very spotty (really awful neighborhoods intermingled with decent ones and even some enclaves of really very wealthy and upscale hoods). The job market is what it is. If you have tech skills that are in demand and you understand how to network, you can probably get a good position. Some companies are still growing and hiring. The really big names (google, apple, etc.) are highly competitive and even really amazing people fail to get hired by them all the time. The days of giant stock option packages, hiring bonuses, and pinball machines are long gone though: there's still some very fun places to work, but the dotcom-era silly-buggers poo poo did not survive the dotcom bust of 2000-2001. Also outsourcing is big. If you are just a basic entry-level QA guy, it's gonna be tough, because India is chock full of people who will work for a fifth your wage. Having specialized skills gets you a big leg up over just a basic CS degree. "Website design" is also not a money maker any more, nobody cares if you can make a website. Certifications are useful as "also nice" things on your resume, but they're the seasoning for the real meat, which is your degree plus your experience. If you're a programmer, you'd better have code samples, references for what you've helped develop, useful languages, and be ready to have your knowledge tested during your interviews. Also hiring sometimes takes a long time. Some places are better than others, but expect at least a month-long process, which means you probably can't just hope to fly out here, have an interview, and "start monday". Unless that actually happens, which it might, if a company needs you right goddamn now. At my own company, we routinely take two months from interview to first day at the job, and sometimes even longer; multiple rounds of interviews are common and we have a lengthy and onerous approvals process before the offer letter finally goes out. Um. Culturally? Awesome. People here love music, art, food, science, geeky stuff, nature, conservation, individualism, film, books, etc. Our bars close at 2am (its the law) and some places that's it for the night, but there are some neighborhoods where you can find something to do later than that if you're a night-owl. Our restaurants are world-class; San Francisco is possibly the best eating-town in the country (New Yorkers will disagree but gently caress them). The area is overflowing with activities and groups and subcultures and kink and so on and so on. Even stuff you wouldn't think is likely in California; one of my co-workers is an avid shooter, for example, and there's several gun clubs and shooting ranges to go to. Auto racing? Yes (though not much NASCAR). Hunting? Highly regulated, but yes, we're overrun with deer actually so please come shoot a few if you are so inclined. Sports, yes indeed, we got your hockey, basketball, baseball, football, whatever. Roller derby. Yachting. Spelunking. Mountain biking. Some people don't like it here. I had a friend from the east coast decide eventually that he had to move back... but in a big part that's because he's a hardcore libertarian and he just got fed up with all the liberal politics. Some people don't like that smoking is getting harder and harder to do here (and it's really expensive). Our gun control laws are pretty ridiculous. If you want snow you have to go to the mountains. We have earthquakes and wildfires and sometimes even floods and mudslides. Mostly the earthquakes thing. Commutes can be really long and traffic can suck (not as bad as LA though, by a looong shot.) We have reasonable public transportation if you work or live near the BART system, or CalTrain, or in San Francisco, but in some places it can be bad or (Pacifica, Marin) almost nonexistent. And it's expensive, enough that taking BART might not actually save you any money over driving, depending on your route and availability of cheap parking, but even then a lot of people use it because it's less frustrating. Oh and there's tons of goons here if you want to goonmeet or whatever. That's probably way more detail than you were asking for.
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Nov 4, 2011 06:07
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Leperflesh posted:The cost of living is high. Really high. But tech job salaries are also high. Some people who move here kind of get shocked at apartment prices or whatever and decide it's too expensive, before realizing that their entry-level programming job will pay $100k and it's (relatively speaking) not that bad. Of course, most people who live here are pretty much accustomed to paying more than 50% of our income for housing, too, when I guess 1/3 is more usual in other parts of the country. I'm a lifelong Boston resident, and much of what you said sounds like it is out here (except worse weather, and surprisingly less liberal politics despite what you hear about Massachusetts). However, anyone who spends even 1/3 of their entire post-tax salary on housing, let alone 50%, is doing something wrong. Or maybe my priorities are different from a typical yuppie. In Boston, you can live in a pretty nice one bedroom apartment for sub-$1500/month if you move a little farther out from the prime locations. Anyway, I got this solicitation today: Startup posted:Why you want this job: I got this from someone related to it and I'm not sure they would want me to post the name, so I edited it out. I have experience with most of the things they require, even a sizable node.js application, but I don't think the person they envision really exists. Expert in web programming as well as functional OpenGL algorithms? Wtf? I question how much they actually know about software development, despite the wide range of technologies and buzz words listed. It looks like something a VC guided them on writing. I plan on leaving my current company in 1-2 years and finding a position similar to this in an early stage startup, but for the skills they require I would ask for an enormous equity stake as well as a high salary. It seems like they want to work a single person to death rather than hire a team to build out a product.
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Nov 6, 2011 18:54
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Yeah, there's some red flags in there for sure. Amazon's cloud is actually pretty good in that it's open and you can get your poo poo back out again if you decide to change vendors or switch to self-hosting, but... uh. All the buzzwords, the stuff about how you're this super-dynamic superstar, the fact they seem to want a programmer who is actually a manager or vice-versa... they want someone who can write device drivers in C? A CTO should be too busy to be spending their time doing serious hacking. If you're pre-IPO, members of the executive staff need to be spending a lot of their time working with customers, planning, and directing staff. In a really tiny startup I can see it, but they claim to have "dozens" of designers already signed on, and as CTO you're at the top of that org. You should be delegating coding, not doing it all yourself. Also, MongoDB is Web Scale https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2F-DItXtZs Here's what rents are like in san francisco (the city proper): craigslist. For example, here's a $1200 in-law with utils included. In Mission/Excelsior, which is not a great neighborhood, but not the worst SF has to offer either (avoid bayview, hunters point, tenderloin - these are the worst three). Given the pricing and the photos look decent, I would expect to be competing with probably 20-30 other people for that place. As an in-law, you're downstairs from some other family; there's no parking included; and, it's possibly an illegal unit (most in-laws are). That's one of the better deals I'm seeing today. Since it's posted on a weekend and they're asking for someone "immediately" it will be rented out today, unless the landlord decides to take longer to review applications for some reason. Oh, and be prepared to provide a sealed copy of your credit report when applying for apartments here. You can save a lot by getting a job on the peninsula instead, and even more if you can commute from the East Bay. So there's a balance. Keep in mind that rents are actually extra-high right now due to foreclosures... all those people that lost their houses had to move into rental units, and we already had a shortage of rental units in the area anyway. If you're interested in buying (DO NEVER BUY) you can get a decent deal now though (which is to say, still far higher than most other places in the country, but a lot less than it was in 2008). edit: "your college degree and grades do not matter to us." ... "Any ideal candidate would possess most of the following: A college degree in CS, Math, EE or equivalent." As the first thing on the list. Yeah, that line about how they don't care about your degree? It's bullshit. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 20:43 on Nov 6, 2011 |
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Nov 6, 2011 20:35
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Turdpunch posted:That's sort of my point - if your skillset lies in the accountancy side of things, why invest the time/effort into learning web design at such an early stage? You make some good points, thanks! I guess I was also kind of interested in learning the design side of things but all the content to go onto the websites is quite substantial, so I think creating that and learning how to do everything else would just never get done probably in all honesty. Hopefully I will get the chance to learn that side of things in future though.
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Nov 6, 2011 23:00
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I'm not a web designer or a fancy-schmancy programmer or anything. My only skill is journalistic writing and photography, which I currently have a fulltime job for. Anyway, here's my idea: Since moving to a rural area peppered with densely populated small towns, I've been toying with the idea of opening a store that deals in videogames, boardgames, toys, etc. I'm located smack-dab in the middle of an area in Michigan with Ann Arbor and Jackson on either side. The folks here loathe having to drive to either one, so I feel like that's one opportunity to tap demand doing something I know (I'm a huge manchild who has always been into videogames and things along those lines). There are some Gamestops on the other side of the county, but I don't really feel like they're a factor, as I would be directly undercutting them in my pricing and fee structure. Basically the town I live in has experienced a surge of young couples and young families, so there are years of stable market for easy local access to toys and games, so I think there's a market for this. The good thing about my model, as I have it roughly crafted in my head, is that I can start small with a website/selling on Ebay or Shopify, local delivery (I live right in the midst of the area) and local marketing efforts to get things going. From there I can scale up to having a storefront and then redouble my efforts on marketing and online presence, building up to each step using proceeds from the previous step. My only biggest concern is procurement of new retail items. I have no idea at this point how to find a distributor for new videogames, consoles, games, toys, etc. Another concern is whether or not videogames will be sold at retail in the next 5 to 10 years, as digital downloads become a bigger slice of the market. Aside from money, this would be a great excuse to learn these skills and I would like to design my own website, building on my basic web and graphic design skills to do so myself, with my girlfriend, who is a business major, assisting me. She would probably build the initial business plan, which would both help us in terms of the business, professional development, and who knows maybe she could write a paper on it when she's thinking of undertaking graduate studies. Now commence with telling me how naive and doomed to failure I am.
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Nov 7, 2011 00:03
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Amazon and Steam, together, will be impossible for you to compete with. Honestly I don't really understand how Gamestop is even still in business.
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Nov 7, 2011 03:38
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Leperflesh posted:Amazon and Steam, together, will be impossible for you to compete with. Honestly I don't really understand how Gamestop is even still in business. Also Gamefly and eBay. The small town nerd emporium is on the way out in the US, despite how many great memories we may have of them.
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Nov 7, 2011 06:19
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I don't entirely agree. I get all my board games from local stores in Missouri and Florida. I live in California - they have both stores in MO/FL and their own stores on the web. They are consistently MUCH cheaper than Amazon, don't charge tax, and neither charges me shipping as long as I order over $100 at a time, which is 2-3 games. I could probably save money with ebay, but the amount of effort I'd have to put into it would negate any savings. I'm not saying it's a great idea, but "internet services and retailers have destroyed the local nerd store" is a bit premature. These two stores I buy from are probably leveraging long term existing relationships with distributors and their ability to move lots of product fast.
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Nov 7, 2011 06:41
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Malloreon posted:I don't entirely agree. I get all my board games from local stores in Missouri and Florida. I agree that these places will be around a while longer, but I don't see how they're ever going to attract enough kids and teens that care about local businesses and non-electronic media to replace their aging userbase. I played 3rd edition D&D and patronized local video/boardgame stores up until I realized that you could get every book out there as a searchable PDF and that games were $5-$15 cheaper online, with infinitely better selection and time efficiency.
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Nov 7, 2011 07:42
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There is an independent video game store that competes quite well with Gamestop where I live. Here is how they do it. First of all, a lot of them specialize in older titles, which is a market that Gamestop doesn't serve. They also aren't competing directly with Amazon, since Amazon proper doesn't carry a lot of older titles and refers customers to Amazon Marketplace. This means no Amazon Prime, no free shipping, and an unpredictable wait until you get your product. Also, they are able to do well because their staff is highly knowledgeable about their product, and they are integrated with a community of hardcore gamers that form the base of their business. They have an ideal location within walking distance of a college campus, and no other game stores within a few miles. I'm not sure how it would do on the web though, they don't even have a dedicated website outside of their Facebook, and I'm not sure what would be on there.
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Nov 7, 2011 09:02
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Well honestly I was trying to be the devil's advocate there. I do think that boardgames and (especially) tabletop gaming still has a place for a brick-and-mortars store... mostly because people want a sort of gaming-community center where they can get together and play the games, as well as buying them. For videogames, and in particular the new game market, I don't think there's a lot of profit potential any more. My local gamestore owner has an online blog where he writes a lot about the difficulties of running his business. Might be of interest: http://blackdiamondgames.blogspot.com/ He goes into details about issues like local taxes and regulations, competition, his relationship with suppliers, customer preferences, staffing, etc.
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Nov 7, 2011 18:59
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Another component I didn't mention would involve potential competitions centered around video and boardgames, as well as having potentially rentable gaming areas right in the store. This community loves communal events and there's a laser tag place right in town that does birthdays and appears to be doing quite well. As a journalist I have numerous contacts in the community that could be leveraged, like the awesome family pizzeria chock full of HDTV's right in town. The owner and I get along famously and I would imagine hosting some kind of videogame tournament or convention would fill her place of business up with families very quickly. I appreciate the feedback, which indicates to me that I definitely should follow my initial instinct and not make this thing an independent Gamestop store. There's also a computer shop in town that could handle repairs and I'm good friends with the owner of an antique shop, who could be a potential business partner/mentor. I plan on sitting down with him this week and discussing how to approach all of this over coffee, and hopefully you guys keep giving me feedback. I'm drafting a business proposal that I'll discuss in more detail once it's drafted for further feedback. edit: Thanks for the link to that blog, which links to some other really insightful blogs relating to business and e-commerce. I intend of reading the whole thing for insight. ANGRY TEEN fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Nov 8, 2011 |
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Nov 7, 2011 23:56
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This isn't exactly a very high tech startup, but lately I've had a business idea of scanning/digitizing businesses's and people's documents and paper files. I do a lot of this for a relative of mine (what was once a huge file cabinet now fits on a single DVD, organized and even many files OCR) but am thinking that it is very feasible to do so as a small business. I can think of some liability issues (lots of files scanned may be legal/important documents), is there any easy business insurance I can get for that? Advertising-wise, aside from word of mouth I'm thinking also just putting a bunch of listings on craigslist computer services and business services section, though that may seem like an unprofessional advertisement type at first but it can work. Maybe also some other advertising choices on publications run for local businesses in my area. How feasible is this idea? Is it best I get a business name, address (even a UPS box address), LLC formed, liability insurance (how necessary would this be?), etc before starting to advertise or right away can I offer my scanning services personally to businesses and get the professional things mentioned set up later? This has been a pretty interesting thread, thanks for any feedback. thegoonofaudio fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Nov 8, 2011 |
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Nov 8, 2011 22:21
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thegoonofaudio posted:Scanning documents Scanning documents by itself is way too niche. The logical solution to that would be to get your relative a scanner for Xmas. But, if you wanted to either start a small local biz of digitizing anything (photos, docs, home movies) or start a local house call computer repair service that offered scanning on the side, you could probably do well for yourself (among an an elderly/computer-illiterate clientele). There's no shortage of A/T threads or Reddit AMAs about that kind of thing.
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Nov 10, 2011 03:36
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TraderStav posted:Anyone else branching out and forming off-line professional services while maintaining their day jobs? Interested in hearing others experiences, and happy to share mine as well. So I'm basically setting up a 'side-project' that I hope one day turn into a proper professional services business. It will be a news / research / intelligence portal catering to a specific industry (which I currently cover in my present job). The idea is to use it at first more as a creative outlet since the content my firm currently releases that I get involved in is basically less about original thought and more about trying to sell consulting work / kiss rear end. I'm hoping to launch for-sale products and services some time down the line. At the very least, if things go well and the site goes online and I release some pieces for free, I'm hoping to use it to beef my resume. My experience so far is this - I have to keep to a very strict schedule, otherwise, it tends to get sidelined by the 'real' job. I'm also trying to avoid any feedback on the name / branding ideas since I have a very specific idea of what it should be and am almost afraid that it would derail me / make me doubt things.
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Nov 10, 2011 21:51
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thegoonofaudio posted:This isn't exactly a very high tech startup, but lately I've had a business idea of scanning/digitizing businesses's and people's documents and paper files. I do a lot of this for a relative of mine (what was once a huge file cabinet now fits on a single DVD, organized and even many files OCR) but am thinking that it is very feasible to do so as a small business. I like this. Do you have an efficient system set up, top of the line scanner? Something better than a business just buying their own scanner and having a lowly employee do it themselves? Do you have a standard organizational model you can present and show them why digital organizational is so many times better than their paper system? A lot of these older small businesses may be opposed to technology, or have had their own "systems" forever, so a clear and concise pitch about how easier their lives will be can go a long way. I'm almost picturing a housecall kind of service, there's no way a company would just hand you important paperwork for you to take home to your setup.
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Nov 11, 2011 17:43
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My small business scanned all our old documents recently. We used a ScanSnap 1500, and it is really an incredible machine. You will have to compete with companies just buying one of those. It comes with software to make OCRed PDFs, and a a "bookshelf of binders" organization system (that we don't use). Scans double-sided at 15 ppm and can detect double feeds. For around $400 if I remember right. There is still room for you to have more value than that, though. Scanning all of our stuff took quite a while, maybe 80-160 manhours. For a busy company, that is a lot of time to waste. We had trouble with large format documents that wouldn't fit in the ScanSnap. We ended up photographing them, but we had to buy a new camera to do that with enough quality. So if you could easily scan big documents that would be a big plus. Also, organization of the scanned documents is huge. How do you find stuff later? How do you organize stuff in a way that that will be useful to the business? If you can be a mini-expert in methods to organize the documents, that would be really helpful.
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Nov 11, 2011 19:22
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Sounds similar to http://www.shoeboxed.com/ - might want to have a look at their workflow/pricing structure.
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Nov 12, 2011 01:38
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To be honest, if you want to aim any higher then the smallest businesses, you need to branch into data retention and management. This is a whole other animal than feeding some documents in a scanner, and you need people who are experts in the legal, technical, and logistical aspects of corporate record keeping. Plus, you'll need to convince your customers that you can be trusted with their critical data. Unless you do this, there isn't any way you can succeed, as you'll be limited to individuals and businesses with maybe a dozen employees at most, and you won't be let anywhere near the lucrative healthcare, accounting, and legal document industries.
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Nov 12, 2011 19:56
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I live in Maryland and started selling electronic kits this year for amusement and to fund my personal projects. By the end of the year, I will have net sales of about 1500$ and next year I expect that to be higher. I do not have a company and am wondering how much I screwed myself over tax-wise this year? I'm wondering how I should file this too so it does not look like I made a 1500$ net profit (I had to buy tools, materials, pay for shipping, and spend my time designing and fabricating kits). Finally, I'm wondering if it's worth it to get an llc or sole proprietorship (and which one) if I only expect to make 2000$ or less in upcoming years. I have researched this in the past and always became discouraged. I feel (I cannot say if this is the truth or not) like whenever I want to take on side work or make things myself, selling it properly becomes such a hassle it's just not worth doing it in the end 
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Nov 21, 2011 02:29
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I just got a request for my business plan. While we filed for the LLC this year and have been running our business for 3 years I have nothing that resembles a plan. I need resources on writing business plans. Any recommendations for college courses available online, websites, or books would be great. Bobx66 fucked around with this message at 20:47 on Nov 21, 2011 |
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Nov 21, 2011 20:01
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Business plan pro is really through but it is a great guide/tool for developing your business plan. http://www.businessplanpro.com/template_offer_c/?gclid=COLhxoa5yKwCFS4DQAodzS1Opw Otherwise, start here.http://www.sba.gov/category/navigation-structure/starting-managing-business/starting-business/writing-business-plan Don't over think it and write it towards your audience.
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Nov 21, 2011 20:20
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macpod posted:I live in Maryland and started selling electronic kits this year for amusement and to fund my personal projects. By the end of the year, I will have net sales of about 1500$ and next year I expect that to be higher. For offsetting income by using expenses you use a schedule C on your federal return. It's pretty simple, just look at the form & instructions off the IRS website. Just make sure you have records of what the stuff cost you. http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040sc.pdf http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040sc.pdf
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Nov 21, 2011 23:49
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Thanks Captain Beans, that helped and reiterated some advice I received today. I also had a discussion about negligence related lawsuits today. I was somewhat under the impression that an llc would protect me from this, but evidently not. It seems like the proper thing for me to do would be to purchase umbrella liability insurance. I'm looking into this more now.
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Nov 22, 2011 03:00
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