Wednesday 25 March 2009

Ultra Light Startups

Ultra light startups are an Event based group focusing at starting in internet company for the initial stage of a idea to a full funded company. Unfortunate its an US groups, and i don't intend to fly all the way to New York, just to watch to there Presentation and Event. The problem of starting a company and bring it to market it one, i know well. I'm doing it the moment at Majorana Informatics. I was first programmer in a Magus Research, and I started a couple with friends just before the internet bubble of 2008.

The problem is of course money. Well a single man operating from his home, can easily build a website, a full fledged internet business, requires staff and office. You'd would hope to have a programmer, a graphic designer, a marketer and an office. That run to between 100,000 and 200,000 a year, rapidly eating up an venture captial that you can get hold of. So between the one man stage, and the small business stage, is there any way to build the company up without getting the VC. I think in practice the answer is yes, but its not yet easy. The economy is very much geared up to salaried employers working at offices currently. And that creates big barriers to growth to the small business stage.

But I believe it is indeed possible out source in all the required parts of a ultra light start-up, running with just a few core people. Consider first the marketting. Its indeed possible, to do your own micro marketing without, spend much money, which very many bloggers talk about, you'll find at selection at our Internet Advertising Feed or for specific area at our Niche Marketing feed. With money not doubt a full advertising campaign would rapidly bring users. But if your website is only funded by advertising can paying of advertising, bring you your own advertising revenue later. The answer is own if the user become regulars at your website, and the means you require interesting lively content that changes regularly for them to read, or some application that will be regularly useful for them.

You can also skip the office, if you can find reliable freelancers for the development areas (programming, graphic design etc) that you can't do yourself. Phone and fax answers services are available to deal with incoming requests. So order to have a business you avoid needing a building or employers at all, to begin with. Which of course saves on Rent, Rates and Tax. The internet should make it easy to find freelancer developers, but in fact, there still a big problem with trust that work will actual get down to specification. And it good to meet up with the workers in person regularly.

Almost every company need to go through this pre-seed stage, and prolonging it without needing capital is an economic advantage even if it might fill that the growth is much slower. If you can show a steady income or the beginning of one, you'll be able to keep a lot more of your company at the VC stage.