Nibletz Staff
Efficiency should be among the highest priorities for any business but this is especially true of startups. Waste is a thief that you can’t allow to infiltrate your fledgling business. If you’ve cast aside the drudgery of the nine-to-five to carve your own niche in the business world, you don’t want to have your ingenious business plan torpedoed by poor asset management. And, make no mistake, the deck is stacked against startups. It’s a well known fact that the average startup can take up to two or three years until it starts to run at a profit. And let’s not forget that dreaded and oft-cited fact that 90% of startups eventually fail.
To make it into the other 10%, is to wage a daily battle against the waste and inefficiency of time, finance and resources. It’s a battle in which you must make substantial savings without cutting corners.
Use open source software
Whether you’re a plumber laying some electric heat tape for water pipes or an artist building a digital model, it’s important to have the right tools for the job. Most startups have some software needs to facilitate their day-to-day operations. The problem is that the software moguls make a lot of money on the backs of budding entrepreneurs because they have the market presence and advertising budget to make us think that they’re the best (or only) game in town.
The truth is that whatever the nature of your business there’s likely an open source software application that can do the job just as well and save you money.
If you need to manage your client base, then Suite CRM is an award winning solution with functionality that rivals Salesforce but doesn’t come with the hefty cost. It’s astonishing how many people pay top-dollar for Photoshop for very rudimentary imaging tasks. Pixlr is a wonderful, browser based imaging app that is very similar in appearance and function to Photoshop and completely free of charge (it doesn’t even leave a watermark). And, not only is Google Docs a more intuitive and UX friendly word processor than Microsoft Word, it offers far more efficient sharing and collaboration, and is (you guessed it) completely free.
Store your data in the cloud
There are a number of factors that make cloud based storage the clear winner for SMEs, but chief among them is cost. Unlike physical storage costs (for example, external hard drives), which are inflexible and predetermined, cloud based storage is completely scalable to the needs of the user. Thus, your startup can choose a flexible plan that grows and adapts with the needs of your business. Starting out you can begin with a modest storage package and upscale incrementally as your businesses grows. Physical storage pricing on the other hand, is far more linear in structure. You pay for a set amount of storage (i.e. a hard drive) then buy another when its limit is exceeded. This can lead you to potentially pay for terabytes of unused data.
There are no expensive and disruptive upgrades or overhauls either, as cloud based infrastructure is upgraded automatically, with the costs borne by the vendor rather than you.
There are many different ways both small and large in which startups can make savings, but starting off with these two will position your business for growth and prosperity.
