Who wants to be an entrepreneur? Start here... (and those who are, help here please!?)

[WilfSell]

OK, I was inspired by the 'earn 1k a month working from home' thread, which turned into an inspiring if terrifying 'don't sell yourself short' thread. And wondered if, those of us who might like to work for ourselves but don't currently, could get started here? I aim to keep my job, and perhaps try to move to part-time at some point. I have some business ideas, some good, some over-ambitious, mostly attempts to roll-out my current skills into a private consultancy, not necessarily linked to my existing job (university research/teaching).

I know it is an incredibly tricky time to think about this, and I'm sure it is not easy or comfortable to make a living... But some people manage it, so why shouldn't more of us?

Fusam, I'm in the FB group and am a graphic designer. I would be very happy to help if it's useful.

I like your point about getting dd into IT. But how? All I can think of is to look for ways to get them coding and maybe make simple apps? What do you think? Do you know of any good resources in that area?

NiceBiscuits
do you know CodeClub?

Nice biscuits get them a raspberry pi and get them coding and building apps that solve problems or games. Games coding is highly maths based and all the successful games developers i know are very clever. There are loads of coding competitions online but tend to be full of young boys.

Design help wise i need help making my apps easy to navigate, etc. Business idea for those of you who are techy but also have design skills is interface design. I.e look åt how apple products are intiutive its because they are so focused on design. product designers for software are in high demand. On my phone today but will find you guys on fb tomorrow and can discuss further.

Thanks Xenia for the gov contract link going to have a go, nothing to lose.

They certainly keep saying they want more small businesses bidding for public sector work. I have never won any but I have not really put much effort into it as with all my other work people just ring up wanting me so the idea you put hours into filling in tender forms and sending in accounts seems like a lot of work when I am getting other work with none of that effort and instead just email someone back saying I can do X for £xxx and they say yes go ahead.

I have heard it said that as a rule of thumb they expect - and like to stick to their script/rules exactly - 3 years of accounts which show turnover to 3 times the value of the contract. Which, is virtually impossible to break in to for us smaller operators - e.g., if you're a start-up your records are non-existant and whilst it might be a full-time job managing a contract of 250,000, you're unlikely to have had the time/resources to manage 750,000 worth of business. Which I suppose is why there is a monopoly on certain types of contracts even though we in the public domain know that they're shoddy operators. :(

Great thread! I do need to get my freelance up and running again. I half heatedly did some freelance but it was so hit and miss and in my line of work, clients are often one off, although referrals were good. I am too lazy and definitely lack confidence, which is not great as I am... a bloody therapist!

Someone give me a kick up the bum please? I am a good therapist but awful at selling myself, which is also odd.... as my day job is marcomms!

Hello, I lurked on the thread about 1K in a month or a day, an then followed you here, am finding you all very inspiring!
I'm an artist and a designer who constantly undervalues her work, but has finally started to desire earning some proper money and becoming more commercial.
I'm working on a range of homewares and stationery to be sold online and via local boutiques to start with. Eventually I'll have Cath Kidson quaking in her boots...maybe....

Can I join? I've been reinventing myself as a freelance journalist for the last couple of years. Although I've been reasonably successful, the rates are so low I really think I should be doing something bigger. I've got experience in finance, the media, marketing, so I should be able to do this! V scared though...

Re journalist: I know someone worth an awful lot and they started on a local paper, then a national but the real money has come when they began buying publications (and now they also do venture capital/investment). I write as part of what I do and it's always been fairly low paid although some I manage to get up to £400 an hour or even in one case about £1k a hour but that's very rare and very specialist stuff and I am very fast. Where I make more money at it is owning the publications. However I am sure it is on the wane as so much is free although it is interesting to watch how the paid Times access will work.

Fusam and Mme Lindor, thanks for those tips about Raspberry PI and Codeclub. They look great. I think our school might be up for Codeclub.

I posted on the 1K thread, but I've namechanged so I can post here about real life work stuff and not have it linked to all my deepest / most embarrassing secrets posted elsewhere on mn!

I'd like to join your fb group - but I don't have an fb account yet. MmeL I've emailed you because I think I need your social media training.

I've been freelance for several years and over that time I've changed the arena in which I work. Part of the key to that has been (whenever possible) making sure that my business expenditure (including salary and dividends) was less than business income. By doing this I built up a financial cushion. My main purpose was to make sure I could get by in a lean year, but in actual fact I used it to train in a niche area and then to establish my new area of work.

I see several posts where people doubt that they could make £1K a day, but in addition to highly paid consultancy work there are other approaches. The key thing is that if your business model is based only on exchanging your time for money (whether it is £6 per hour on pph, or £500 per hour in specialist work) then your potential to earn is always going to be limited by your availability to work, and the number of hours that you are willing to work. I have met some very successful people who have exploited their talents more creatively, to make additional money that was not related so directly to their input.... For example a friend left employed work and set up as a therapist - work for which she could charge about £25 per hour, and in a local market that was already quite crowded. So she also expanded into products: home-made aromatherapy products, meditation CDs, crystals in presentation boxes. She trained as a teacher and ran classes and group work. She set up a membership group which people payed to join and established a network of qualified, insured therapists. She established a link with a local cancer charity and the Therapists from her network offered reduced price therapies - this also had a massive benefit of establishing her credibility. It took her a couple of years to get all this established but it has left her in a position where she can research new areas of interest (I think her most recent research venture has been meditation for children, for which she has produced a CD and written a book).

So I suppose what I'm suggesting is looking at ways in which you not only make jewelry but also run a jewelry class, and write a book about silversmithing techniques (or whatever). And it's the approach that I'm about to take with my most recent venture.

Very good, gw. I have been similar in a sense - do a variety of things all kind of linked but they all help each other.

Also even those of us who are in areas where we are paid a lot per hour we are only a glorified cleaner in a sense even when hourly rates are over £200 because you are just selling time. If you can charge instead fixed prices based on the value of what you provide and/or have people working for you profits from whom you keep and ultimately have a business selling things you are not necessarily directly sitting there selling on an hourly basis unltimateily you make the most money. It is those who create a business and sell it who tend to make the most money.

fusam, I thought about your quest for making apps easy to navigate, etc. when I came across this post on a Branding Agency website
www.movingbrands.com/?p=9438

Thought it was quite an interesting point about adding just enough personality but nothing too whacky.

Hi everyone - much like greatwork I posted on the £1k thread but have name changed for the same reason!

This is one of the best threads I have ever seen on MN... Interesting, inspiring, intelligent.

I am aiming for £1k a day eventually.... Almost half way there so a long way to go but not entirely impossible!

Watching with interest and as I mentioned earlier happy to help anyone who needs business plan/brand strategy/marketing advice as that's my area...

So great to see some smart chat on MN!

Glad it's liked.
We also need to remember that is you earn £1000 a day at least half is given back to the state and you are then in the 1 in 4 people who support the 3 in 4 who are net takers from the welfare state. So it means you have your 3 benefit claimants you keep in a sense so I suppose it is also good for the country to earn those sums and in a sense you do God's work...

Nice way to look at it!!

I've only been my own boss since June but so far am loving it!

I've got the forum 75% done and will spend another hour this evening, then I shut early. Wednesday is my early finish day.

DolomitesDonkey Thanks for posting the link to the Great British Business Show looks great, I'd have a cuppa with you

Avago I registered there ages ago (free ticket) and have it ready to go - but I probably won't know until October whether it's a possibility for me. But if I do go, I would love to rally the troops and take a look around.

There has been a forum created to discuss such entrepreneurial matters which will I hope, prove much easier to navigate than a FB page. If you'd like to join - please just PM almost anyone on this thread for the address.

I haven't read the whole thread but have tried to read most of it and the other £1000 a month thread.

Thought I'd add my experience and where I'm at now:
My career was in PR in a sector I hated. After having kids, I set up on my own in a completely new PR sector. I started out charging next to nothing because I didn't know the sector and felt I needed to get experience before charging more. It took me a long time to increase my rates but I eventually was charging £400 a day which for the sector was ok.

I could have made it a bigger business if I'd felt inspired by it, but I didn't. I did manage to sell it after running it for 5 years, again not for a fortune, but a pretty decent sum (what many people would be more than happy to earn a year). Given it was really just me and my client list I was pretty amazed that I managed to sell it at all.

I am now doing some freelance marketing work but I really want to set up a new business, I just don't know what. All of my experience is in PR but I am so bored of PR and I don't even like it. Feel like I have no experience in anything else so am stuck. I will be following this thread with interest and would love to know about the FB group.

A few other things:

• when I started out I only had childcare one day a week and had to work the rest of the time when my kids were asleep. I started up when my kids were 6 months and 2 years respectively. It was hard work
• To get my first clients, I found companies I'd like to work for and wrote to them. I sent a personal email to the founder of the businesses (they were small businesses) and suggested how they might be able to improve their profile. Because they were so busy and didn't have time to go looking for a PR company, they very often just said yes and I cracked on with it.
• If I could go back, I'd say to myself: believe in yourself. Be brave

I was paid today to record a DVD thing about developing a business which was fun. £500 for just over the hour which is good by my standards anyway.
J&J has good advice. Often people have no time to loko for the services they need and if you just happen to contact them when they are interested in something they will take the first person offering that service.

Presumably there is some money in setting up in advertising - something one of my children had considered before she picked what she now does and why I liked it is that ultimately you can be your own boss, be the new female Saatchi. However on the whole girls leaving university who want to go into "PR" your heart sinks and you think low pay for life whereas if they were going off to be McKinsey consultants or to be potential equity partners at Ernst & Young on £1m a year you suspect over all they will earn more. I am not saying PR can never be well paid but at graduate level it does tend to pay worse as do lots of the popular female things like women's magazines and fashion than some others. However if you own the magazines or set up your own netaporter you can certainly do pretty well.

Peri I've PM'd you. I am in the early stages of a new business and would love some feedback. Can you add me to the Facebook page

I don't have the admin on there - please contact MmeLindor or DolomitesDonkey :)

See you there!

Tip of the day! Look at your list of start up costs, then pick one and strive to reduce it. It's common sense and probably everyone already does it, but I've managed to source several items today more cheaply than I originally thought I would be able to purchase them for and am feeling very pleased!

GW Thank you, I need to start logging everything and setting up some excel sheets, I'm hoping to recover my start up costs within 2 months.
I have a glass of in hand, I will be on it at 7am tomorrow