From today until this Friday, I will be attending the Business Start Up Week course organized by Cardiff University. Talks will be delivered by Venture Wales on the behalf of Welsh Assembly.
Today we had talk regarding Business Operations and Cost & Pricing. These two elements are fundamental to business organization because the day to day running of the business is important to create a sustainable business. And do you know that 92% of business start ups failed within their first year of trading? As wise man said,
If you fail to plan, you plan to fail
However, I will share few links for tool and articles that I have used when running my business and I believe it is quite useful for business start ups especially when they are new and working by themselves. Feel free to add more at the comment section.
Invoice
I have been using FreshBooks for more than a year while the company itself has been established since 2004 and served more than 800000 users. Give it a try because it is free for the first three clients. Yes, you can delete the client whenever you wish. Try it now for free, if you like it, you keep it!
Pricing
If you are offering services and you are not sure how much to charge for (on hourly rate basis), I present you with the FreelanceSwitch Hourly Rate Calculator. It calculates your hourly rate using the information that you entered. At the end, you will find the break even hourly rate and ideal hourly rate.
Articles
Related from the hourly rate calculator above, FreelanceSwitch is a website that offer ranges of articles for business owners. Even though their main target is the freelancers, but there a lot of things that we can learn from. Below are few articles that you might find useful:
Other than that, I often read articles from Business Link which gives practical information and advice for businesses. And lately I am intrigued by the inbound marketing phenomenon and for that I have been following HubSpot closely.
Business Card
Having a business card is really important especially when you are going to any talks and exhibitions especially networking events. I have wrote about business card and its essentials few weeks ago and below are few information on how you look more professional with it:
- Have a web domain name for your business. yourdomain.com
- Once you have a domain, setup a custom email address: yourname@yourdomain.com or contact@yourdomain.com — (Free)
- Use/Create a business tag line for your business or some catchy line to engage your card with your potential clients.
- Have a designer to design your card and ask him or her to print it on at least 300gsm art paper with matte finishing.
Check out 51 creative business cards that will make you look twice at it
Conclusion
Finally, I will share few things that I think worth mentioned during the course today:
Hiring an accountant is quite expensive for business start ups. What you can do is to look for exchange in service with you company. That way, both parties will gain benefit.
If you’re a student, you can actually get quite discounts for buying computers. For example, the new MacBook Pro will cost about £900 and for students, you can get it about £770 (£130 less).
Social media is emerging nowadays and you need to be ready and equipped yourself with it. Personally, I have gained quite number of design projects just using twitter only. Follow me on twitter
Should you have any questions, feel free to drop a line below or contact me. Hope you find this article useful and all the best!
- Mohd Rafie, Freelance Designer
From today until this Friday, I will be attending the Business Start Up Week course organized by Cardiff University. Talks will be delivered by Venture Wales on the behalf of Welsh Assembly.
Today we had talk regarding Business Operations and Cost & Pricing. These two elements are fundamental to business organization because the day to day running of the business is important to create a sustainable business. And do you know that 92% of business start ups failed within their first year of trading? As wise man said,
However, I will share few links for tool and articles that I have used when running my business and I believe it is quite useful for business start ups especially when they are new and working by themselves. Feel free to add more at the comment section.
Invoice
I have been using FreshBooks for more than a year while the company itself has been established since 2004 and served more than 800000 users. Give it a try because it is free for the first three clients. Yes, you can delete the client whenever you wish. Try it now for free, if you like it, you keep it!
Pricing
If you are offering services and you are not sure how much to charge for (on hourly rate basis), I present you with the FreelanceSwitch Hourly Rate Calculator. It calculates your hourly rate using the information that you entered. At the end, you will find the break even hourly rate and ideal hourly rate.
Articles
Related from the hourly rate calculator above, FreelanceSwitch is a website that offer ranges of articles for business owners. Even though their main target is the freelancers, but there a lot of things that we can learn from. Below are few articles that you might find useful:
Other than that, I often read articles from Business Link which gives practical information and advice for businesses. And lately I am intrigued by the inbound marketing phenomenon and for that I have been following HubSpot closely.
Business Card
Having a business card is really important especially when you are going to any talks and exhibitions especially networking events. I have wrote about business card and its essentials few weeks ago and below are few information on how you look more professional with it:
Check out 51 creative business cards that will make you look twice at it
Conclusion
Finally, I will share few things that I think worth mentioned during the course today:
Should you have any questions, feel free to drop a line below or contact me. Hope you find this article useful and all the best!
- Mohd Rafie, Freelance Designer