Once we had the pleasure of listening to a successful entrepreneur give a talk about how he made it, and how some of his friends who also started companies were faring. Long story short we got to talking about two good friends of his who had started companies years ago. One was now a very successful energy mogul, whereas the other one was still trying to get the idea he had all those years back off the ground, kept on funneling resources into it, he was undeniably unforgiving to his idea. How could his idea not work, after all he had thrown so much time money heart passion and soul into it? Simple answer, it just didn’t.

And when your entrepreneurial idea doesn’t work, the only thing to do is kill it, bury it and move onto the next one. If it doesn’t work, no big deal, the next one will, and if not that one, the one after that, and if not that one…. well… eventually something should hit. But people – they get overly attached to their ideas, they think that the one idea they have and devote resources to will change the world or something here, something there.

Most wont, and the best thing to do is to test it, launch it, if it doesn’t take off. Kill it. Your time is more valuable than the resources you’ll invest into bringing something inherently broken to market.

But how can you identify if your idea is a good idea other than that your friends, and family tell you it is? Follow these simple rules.

1. Does it satisfy a market need?
2. Is it scalable?
3. Who is my market?
4. What are my competitive competencies? Where do I excel?
6. Is my idea really that amazing? If not, it’s no big – more money gets thrown at mediocre ideas with great people than vice versa.

So before jumping into the fire, ask yourselves those few simple questions.

The first paragraph of a report published by the University of Cape Town: General School of Business in 2002 reads as follows.

“South Africa is less entrepreneurial than other developing countries, a fact which could impact negatively on the country’s economic growth and job creation prospects. According to the 2002 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), released at the United Nations last week, South Africa is below the average rate of entrepreneurial activity when compared to the 36 other countries taking part in the survey and ranks lowest of all developing countries including Chile, Brazil, Mexico, India, Argentina and Thailand. [i]”

Which poses a very important question. Why is that? And have things changed under Mbeki and Zuma? For the most part, a lot of people would say no, while others hope that the upcoming Wolrd Cup will be the answer to all their problems. We know that this is however not so, and it is necessary to identify and remedy the various problems that plague South Africa’s entrepreneurial climate and provide a clear path for future entrepreneurs to have the environment necessary to actualize their business ideas and to foster development in new enterprise.

PROBLEM RECOGNITION

Charting the Bureaucratic Red Tape – The report “Counting the Cost of Red Tape” – November 2004 identifies the first and by far the most severe of the problems associated with entrepreneurialism in South Africa is just this, red tape. Decentralized regulatory environment, lack of information, and high costs all create a climate that is disadvantageous to the entrepreneur.

A life less Educated – deeper problem rests in the lack of skilled labor. Companies cannot adequately grow if labor requirements for growth are not met, training of individuals is an option, and the South African government has made stipends to foster training within organizations, however, the lack of information regarding these programs, and the risks that entrepreneurs are taking by creating their own businesses coupled with risk associated to the expenditure of time for training has to be taken into consideration as well; here we talk about local based SME’s – if you’re looking at something akin to an international business model, the problems run even deeper, especially considering many well educated South Africans have emigrated abroad diminishing the country’s talent pool.

Show me The Money – While there is plenty of capital in South Africa, the problem rests with acquiring it – aside from X seed funds are far and between – and BA / VC activity heavily lags behind other growing companies.  There are however a few initiatives for Entrepreneurs worth looking into.

The Small Medium Enterprise Development Program (SMEDP) – a cash, tax free, grant for new investment and major expansion project. It is capital investment based and is receivable over a three year period, with a maximum level of R100m for the level of qualifying assets.

A Foreign Investment Grant (FIG) – Coexisting to the SMEDP, the FIG is available to refund relocation costs of plant and equipment shipped to South Africa from abroad.

Skill Support Program (SSP) – a supplement to an approved SMEDP project which provides subsidies to training and personnel development costs. It is provided in conjunction with the South African Department of Labor [ii].

And although they are there, they are also subject to the same problems of red tape.

Where the Roads Have no Names – Infrastructure is key to any economy and more so a growing one. But aside from road and rails, what South Africa needs more than anything is an adequate IT infrastructure. Drastic changes, deregulation, and private investment in the sector are key in facilitating easier access to information by and for potential entrepreneurs; speeds, lowered costs, and widespread access are KSF’s (Key success Factors) to fostering any real business development in the country.

How do we tackle these issues and help foster growth in entrepreneurial activity within South Africa? We’d like to as you, and we’ll have our own answer this coming Monday.

More often than not you will see features and ideas developed and implemented int0 products that serve no purpose whatsoever, they may be nifty little things such as a fingerprint scan to bypass the password on your mobile app, of they may be a peripheral port on an some electronics that serves absolutely no purpose other than being there. Why do we put them in? To make the product cooler? To make it future ready? For 5 years down the line? Most of the time, all these extra features are useless, and here’s why.

Let’s look at it this way.

1. What real purpose do these extra features serve? And

1. How do your customers, or how will your customers engage your product and/or service.

Often times when designing your product or service you’ll want to add in additional “doo-babs” because they’re cool, or will make your product stand out from the competition, or will allow for the eventual possibility of expansion five years down the line. But in reality, will any of this provide an added benefit or is it just some kitsch that cost you time and money to develop? And how do you know if a feature is necessary, well this second part comes down to knowing your customer.

Who is your customer, how does your customer engage the product or service – what is the value that your product or service offers your customer.

Let’s look at the mobile fingerprint concept which recently came up in conversation at an entrepreneurship meeting that I attended here in Barcelona. Sure, it’s a nifty little feature that substitutes the login/password combo of a mobile application, but what does it add in terms of functionality. Not much. But what does it take away in terms of time & resources?

Implementing a traditional login/password combo takes about 5 minutes worth of work, fingerprint recognition, in all likelihood a bit more – in fact probably a lot more.

The time that it took the programmer to develop the fingerprint recognition would have been better spent working on a core function of the software or making sure that the software is bug free, and if that had already been completed then time to market would have been decreased. Lower time to market, the quicker your company starts earning ducats.

Just because a feature may seem “cool”, it’s not necessarily a key component. Will something like a fingerprint password scan make the customer use your product over your competitions? Personal privacy issues aside, probably not.

What will make them use it over the other is the value it offers. Software developers often go beyond themselves and develop really cool but really useless technologies – i.e. aforementioned fingerprint login. But logins and fingerprints aside, they’ll often develop feature heavy applications where the end user will simply want a stripper down version. Meaning, the end user will typically not engage a phone for more than 15 seconds – aside from a flight, a bus ride, or a few hops on the metro. They want their info, they get their info, and they exit the application.Wham, bam, thank you ma’am. A good example of a stripped down version of a software is 37 signals – all they provide are the basics, and leave the hoopla out of it.

By developing 50,000 features into that application that are for the most part an unnecessary expenditure, you’re wasting money, resources, and time, but more importantly you’re not thinking how the customer will use your product.

At the end of the day successful design is not about “cool” but about “functionality” and that applies to anything from mobile applications, to chairs, and cars – and once that functionality is in there, well then you can add in the cool.

On the 10th of May we covered the first part of out 10 best cities to start a company in the U.S. and today we round out the group by adding the other five.

San Diego, California

When 20+ year ago the military decided it was going to move some of its bases away from SD the city government had two options, 1. Fall the way of the rust belt, 2. reinvent itself. Luckily it opted for number two, and now the city is a hotbed of startup activity, anything from solar panels, to new medicines and drugs, and software. S.D. is not a bad place to start your new venture.

Pros: Why it may not have the dynamics of it’s northern California neighbor, it does possess Spanish Colonial flair that S.F. for the most part lacks, and with January temperatures in S.D. on average at 68.8F or 18C you can save plenty of money on winter clothing.
Cons: Undoubtedly you will have drunk college students passing by, and visiting the city when on their way to Rosarito or Tijuana.
Strange Fact:  Barbie Dolls, blue jeans, the boysenberry, the pill, white zinfandel wine (for better or worse), the square tomato, natural soda, the computer “mouse,” the wetsuit, and theme parks were all invented in California.

Phoenix, Arizona

Simply put, the city is booming, and with a young population, the university of Phoenix’s Spirit of Enterprise Center, and a small but growing tech scene the city is a heavy up and comer in the entrepreneurship scene. While there is no specific industry as of yet in Phoenix it’s dynamism is definitely a draw for any budding entrepreneur.

Pros: The Phoenix Small Business Development Program is a great resource and tool for any budding entrepreneur, as is ASU.
Cons: The lack of a defining industry is a gamble and it can get bloody hot, 106F (42C) during the summer.  Ouch.
Strange Fact: In Phoenix, you can’t walk through a hotel lobby with spurs on, who’d have thunk it.

Atlanta, Georia

Hotlanta! What’s there to say it’s another boom town. And with high growth come big opportunities. The city is focusing heavily on the development of a biotech cluster, so for all scientists reading this, give Atlanta more than just a glance.

Pros: Atlanta boasts full portfolio of city-backed loans, grants and tax credits and combines it all with a low cost of living.
Cons: Atlanta ranked the 10th most dangerous city in its population range in 2009.
Strange Fact: Should you be in the minority of Giraffe owners know that it is illegal to tie a giraffe to a telephone pole or street lamp in Atlanta.

Austin, Texas

With SXSW, a young population, universities, a bustling music scene, food and film scene, and now a stronger and growing tech scene this is the city to be in if you’re in Texas.

Pros: The Tech Ranch and Capital Incubators are pushing the entrepreneurship scene forward, and the Texan ethos has created a truly collaborative environment.
Cons: There is no major airport, meaning you’ll have to drive to either Dallas of Houston, and the traffic is terrible for a city of its size.
Strange Fact:  Austin’s Capitol building is pink! A very stately color.

Seattle, Washington

The effects of Microsoft are very much evident in this corner of the U.S. and as such the intellectual capital in this city is rivaled only by a few pockets in the rest of the States. Notwithstanding, you’ve also got a lot of money flowing into new startups and technology.

Pros: If you’re in IT, WA has the highest per capita share of technology-dependent jobs among all the states in the country.
Cons: Honestly, it’s the weather, London weather, year round rain and little sun. It can be taxing, but if it doesn’t bother you, then Seattle is a great place. Also not great if you’re not in IT.
Strange Fact:  Seattle is home to weird beverage makers. Aside from the gloabl Starbucks, it’s also home to Jones Soda, that at one point offered a kosher Ham & Latke flavored beverage. Oy vey!

Honorable Mention

The following cities while not in the Top10 according to us, are definitely up and comers and should be looked into and investigated by any budding entrepreneur looking for a new location.

Portland, Oregon – Las Vegas, Nevada – Orlando, Florida – Youngstown, Ohio

In January we covered Europe’s top 10 entrepreneurial friendly cities, today we hop across the Atlantic and visit America, and while Silicon Valley, Boston and New York may all pop into mind as the de-facto places to start, we have some very interesting revelations. Sit back, and enjoy.

Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina

Say what? Yes. North Carolina, not only is there plenty of activity in the technology scene here but there is also a local push from government, and universities to foster entrepreneurship in NC.

Pros: The NC Research Triangle is a hub of activity for Linux, SAS, IBM among other initiatives.
Cons: People may make fun of you when you tell them you live in one of the Carolinas.
Strange Fact: Chances are you may find more native New Yorkers in NC, than in NYC.

Boston, Massachusetts

Will refrain from making any Boston accent jokes here, but Boston is undoubtedly a hub for entrepreneurial activity. With MIT and Harvard both being in earshot of each other, and entrepreneurship activity coming in from a multitude or sectors, you can rest assured that Boston is not a place to start your company, be it biotech, or software.

Pros: Wealth of activity in research coupled with a multitude of initiatives makes Boston a great location to start a business.
Cons: Strange accents, and clicky locals. It’s been said that making local friends in Boston is not the easiest thing in the world.
Strange Fact: Whatever you do, don’t wear a Yankees shirt/hat to a Boston outing or bar. We warned you.

San Francisco Bay Area, California

Like Boston, this place has got it all, Universities, Research, Software, Biotechnology, Venture Capital, the whole 9 yards and a great healthy lifestyle to boot.

Pros: With all the activity in Silicon Valley it’s no surprise that the world looks at this little piece of California for inspiration, it’s the place European Startups go to when Europe fails its leading innovators.
Cons: SV is not the epicenter that it once was, other hubs have popped up around the U.S. which offer entrepreneurs and more mature companies the same or very similar benefits as SV
Strange Fact: If you lose a prototype product in a bar, chances are you’ll wind up swimming with the fishes. Collective Intelligence is very very very important here.

New York, New York

The concrete jungle where dreams are made of has its ups and downs. Typically a financial and media hub, NY has made strides in the past few years to become more appealing to entrepreneurs, and even boasts some great entrepreneurship initiatives from the city gov, i.e. all the stuff at the Levin Institute.

Pros: There is a lot of money, there are a lot of unemployed execs and financiers who can help get your startup to where it needs to be. Networking is great here.
Cons: Let’s face it, New York is not a cheap place to live, and the locals (at least those who haven’t moved to N.C) may be hard to come by.
Strange Fact: New York loves media, be they newspapers, new channels, blogs, what have you some of the nations biggest media companies are based here. If your startup is media focused. Well….

Minneapolis, St. Paul, Rochester, Minnesota

Makes up one of the leading medical device clusters in the U.S. and rank in the top 10 biotechnology centers in the U.S.A.

Pros: Cost of living is relatively cheap compared to the other cities on this list, which as a startup you know is a key factor to keeping you going when in the early stages.
Cons: Unless you’re focused on the biotech market, not much here in the way of media, web/mobile, clean tech space, and it’s cold.
Strange Fact: When a man meets a cow in Minnesota, he is required by law to remove his hat. Seriously.

Tomorrow we round out the 10 places to start your company in the U.S. – so be sure to check back.

It’s no great secret that your and your business partners’ professional networks will undeniably aid you in aiding your company expand, enter new markets and gain new clients. But the question is, if you don’t have an access to a strong professional network – how can you build it? And more importantly how can you actualize it?

1. University Alumni - University alumni networks are a great place to start building your network. You and the others have one fairly strong thing in common, which is your school, most if not all universities have alumni networks and encourage their alumni to work together.

If you have access to an online database – even better, but when contacting people you effectively don’t know, it’s important not to come off as if you’re selling something. Be inquisitive ask questions, and see if you can have a sit down over some coffee. Basically, get to know the person before you ask them for a favor.

2. Local Group Meetings – Cities will typically have interest based clubs / meetings which focus on any given subject or topic – a good place to find these groups is meetup.com – and while typically you won’t find the crème de la crème of your industry, it’s a good way in nonetheless.

3. Family – Talk to moms, dads, uncles, aunts and other family members. You never know whom someone may know, and that someone they may know may be the person that you need to speak to. Family can oftentimes be a great starting point for your network.

4. Online Networks – LinkedIn and Xing are a great way to expand your network as well. If you haven’t joined any groups that are of interest to you, do so, and more importantly, start conversations and topic on those groups that are of interest to you.

5. Conferences – Conferences are a great place to meet people, and more importantly people in your industry, though before heading to any conference do some research on it, see what others have said, and if it’s worth going.

6. Private Clubs – There is an array of clubs around the world that can help foster networking, be they Alumni Clubs such as the Cornell Club in New York, or the Royal Automobile Club in London, one thing is certain, your membership will have clear benefits.

7. Personality – Some people have it easier than others. For some who are extroverts meeting other people is as simple as turning on the kettle, for introverted individuals meeting new people can be quite difficult.

A big problem with young companies is that aside from some very rough financial guidelines it is often very difficult to gauge whether the venture will or won’t be successful. Many investment houses have employed multi-metric project valuation and assessment approaches and at present there is ample work being done at top business universities in order to augment the early stage venture valuation process. One such a methodology is the Bell- Mason Framework.

Developed over the past 20 years, the Bell-Mason framework has been fine tuned to do just that, assess ventures utilizing 12 dimensions and 5 stages of company growth.

Fundamentally, the five stages of company growth are time oriented are consist of the following. Concept, Seed, Alpha, Beta, and Market Calibration, and are meant to chronicle the evolution of a venture over time.

Each one of these five stages is then applied to a specific dimension that is in itself grouped into four areas, Product, Market, Finance, People.

What allows you then to assess each dimension individually is a series of yes no questions, for example let’s look at team.

Is the team comprised of people knowledgable to their sector? Yes/No
Does the team work efficiently and do the team members compliment one another? Yes / No

By asking yourself a series of these types of questions, and the more the merrier, you’ll effectively be able to gauge your readiness, and stage where your company is and what you should apply resources to in order to fix / strengthen your business as a whole.

Ideally, what you can also do is map a process utilizing this framework – it will tell you in addition to any holes you may have in your business model whether or not it’s a good idea to continue with the project or to kill it. For a much more in depth explanation of this framework – be sure to grab the PDF by Ben Livson.

For more info on Bell Mason, and to access an academic PDF by Ben Livson on Startup valuation, click here

The elevator pitch, those few sentences that are pivotal to conveying the message of your company across. You may think you have it right, but the truth of the matter is that even if you think you have it right, try in on a few people and see what they think, then go back to it, think about and try again. The elevator pitch will dictate whether you’ll get some love in the elevator, or whether your idea will just get shot down.

So what is it, Wikipedia defines the elevator pitch as “An elevator pitch or elevator speech is a short persuasive speech about a person, an organization or group, or an idea for a product, service, or project. An elevator pitch is often a part of a Marketing communications, brand, or public relations program. Good elevator pitches are succinct and compelling to their target audience. The name reflects the idea that an elevator pitch should be possible to deliver in the time span of an elevator ride, approximately thirty seconds to two minutes.“

Let’s leave the two minutes aside, and focus on the 30 seconds. The typical interest span of an adult human is eight seconds, so if you don’t get their attention in those fist 8 seconds, or let’s shorten it to even 5, chances are you’ve lost your audience. So.

Number One: Be succinct. Keep your opener to a sentence, at max two. This sentence should convey 1. What you do 2. What you need, and if you can, 3. Who you are.

“Hi, I’m Jacek the founder of f3fundit, a website dedicated to helping the entrepreneur and investor succeed, and we’re looking for applicants to Next Top Startup, a new concept ever we’ve planned for this June in Barcelona.“

What did we do here. 1. Introduction, you know who I am. 2. What we do, and 3. What we need.

Number Two: Have a hook. Let’s face it, if someone’s pitching you something you initially have no interest in, chances are you’ll tune out. A hook is something that grasps your audience’s attention. In this case your audience can be a group of people or one person. And your hook should be adjusted for them. Meaning, if you’re pitching to an investor your hook will differ than if you’re pitching to a collaborator. The hook is basically the value that you give the other party. What do we mean.

The pitch continues:

“The event offers a chance to win up to €25k for one startup, and we’re offering world class mentoring via the people we’ve brought on board.” this hook is targeted at the entrepreneur. You clearly see the value of participating in the event.

“The event offers you an opportunity to assess some of the best international companies, those that have gone through a rigorous selection and training process.” Here the hook is adjusted for the investor. The target audience clearly sees that we’ve eased their pre-selection and that we can help their deal flow.

Number Three: It’s all about you. For the next few seconds the world really is revolving around you, so knock the audience dead. Why should they listen to you? Who are you that you know your subject matter? Can they confide in you, and recommend you? Be sure to answer these questions.

The pitch continuities:

“I know the tribulations that a startup goes through, I’ve been there myself, I’ve likewise invested in companies, and what we’re doing is needed in the community. We’ve thus far received overwhelmingly positive support from the people we’ve contacted.“

You. 1. Establish authority by knowing your subject matter and market, and 2. since others are positive towards your ideas there ought to be something there.

Number Four: Seal the deal. If you and other party are really in an elevator, chances are your 30 seconds are up, or almost up. If you’re speed dating, probably the same. If you’re taking part in a pitch contest and have five minutes, let’s hope you brought slides. But for the sake of argument we’re in an elevator.

The pitch concludes:

“What do you think? How about we exchange contact details and set up a meeting later this week?“

Obviously, there are cultural differences and we’re not saying everyone should be so direct, but they should in their cultural manner get this message across nonetheless. Set up a meeting, a phone call, a chat, what have you, and when you go meet whoever it was you were pitching to, you’ll now have time to elaborate on your idea.

Number Five: Rinse and Repeat. There’s a reason we have a saying that goes practice makes perfect. Practice, do it in front of a mirror, on camera, record yourself, time yourself. Remember not to bee over anxious, test it out on colleagues and friends. Take feedback, rework and repeat the process again until it’s solid as a rock.

Do this, and you’ll be pitching like a pro in no time, and just for fun, let’s see what the whole pitch looks like.

“Hi, I’m Jacek the founder of f3fundit, a website dedicated to helping the entrepreneur and investor succeed, and we’re looking for applicants to Next Top Startup, a new concept ever we’ve planned for this June in Barcelona. The event offers a chance to win up to €25k for one startup, and we’re offering world class mentoring via the people we’ve brought on board. I know the tribulations that a startup goes through, I’ve been there myself, I’ve likewise invested in companies, and what we’re doing is needed in the community. We’ve thus far received overwhelmingly positive support from the people we’ve contacted. What do you think? How about we exchange contact details and set up a meeting later this week?”

34.7 Seconds. Meaning back to the drawing board on this one, and it sounded a bit off. But for the sake of exercise it was written along with this article.

And that’s that. As a bonus, stay far far far away from getting into technical details with your audience, we’ve covered it before, and we’ll say it again. The most important thing is to get your message across.

While being bothered about someone’s mafia farm chicken may be a bit bothersome, it’s also indicative of a much bigger and more important change that facebook is currently undergoing, and underpins a larger trend in web based technology as a whole.

Given we’ve heard a lot about cloud computing services such as MobileMe, Amazon’s EC2, and Microsoft’s Azure Platform which will be a pivotal part of the next MS Office release, but these services are all trivial in comparison to what’s happening on facebook.

What is this? Effectively facebook games, as well as other applications are creating a market for a new type of web based operating system, and software delivery medium. This being facebook.

Simply speaking, a device will only to connect to the net in order to utilize those facebook applications that the user wants, and no actual data will need to be installed on the user owned device itself.

Clearly we are now seeing the infancy of this system as facebook applications in all are very simplistic in design and functionality, but their success has proven that there is not only a market but also a large one for value added services via facebook.

A similar trend is Google Apps & Marketplace. Google currently sells online business service competing with the likes of MS Exhange and IBM Lotus notes, it’s developer marketplace is likewise targeted at the business community and allows for independent developers to distribute add-ons for its suite of online business products.

Whether facebook will see the development of business type applications or keep to the current entertainment type applications that we’re seeing is still up in the air, though I would wager that – online collaboration tools will undoubtedly appear on facebook within the next 2-5 years.

Aside from allowing for new revenue streams for developers, facebook has a brilliant opportunity to capitalize on its platform by employing the Apple iTunes store model. Meaning that the new project management software running on facebook could cost the end user $50 per annual license, and facebook would then receive a % of sales. Plain as day, the platform is clearly scalable and the array of applications that it can offer the end user can be immense.

Then why doesn’t it do it? Why is facebook focusing on revenue generation through adverts that next to no one clicks on? For that you’ll have to ask the kid from Ardsley, but the strengthened focus on facebook’s developer community clearly shows a change in strategy for the social networking giant. Everyone sees that there is a huge market opportunity there, the question is – what will traditional players such as Microsoft, Apple, and the like do about it? And what about Google? Clearly both FB and Google are headed in the same direction, Google focusing more on business and facebook on entertainment, but will their paths cross? Will this be the next great showdown? Only time will tell.

What do you think?

Drummond Gilbert is in an ex-accountant currently developing gocarshare.com, a website that helps people share car journeys. Integrated with Facebook, and boasting its own mobile app, gocarshare.com will be free to use for individual drivers and passengers and will open up car-sharing as a cost effective and green way to travel. The site is slated to launch this June.

If you would like to contact Drummond you can do so via his e-mail, or on twitter @drummondgilbert. For more info on Drummond and the company, head over to his blog at gocarshare.com or join the facebook fan page.

By DRUMMOND GILBERT

How low can you go?

Bootstrapping is the process of setting up a business on a limited budget with very little external funding. It’s the approach I am taking with gocarshare. So what constitutes essential expenditure and where can you cut costs without cutting corners?

Communication & Collaboration

I’ve signed up for a worldwide subscription to Skype, which gives me free calls to landlines around the world. I have also signed up for the Skype voicemail service and a Skype out number; I’ve been working out in France over the last few months, this had made things considerably easier for me, as people have been able to call me on my UK number for the price of a local call, meaning that despite the fact that I am many miles away from the people I am working with, the distance is effectively irrelevant.

Skype has the potential to lower your phone bill considerably; it also makes it easier to contact people from all over the world. If you are not using it already you definitely should be considering it.

Design Services

I set up a logo design competition on the website 99designs.com, this has allowed people from around the world to compete on my logo design for gocarshare. The price I paid for the logo was perhaps a quarter of what it would cost to get a professional logo designer to do it for me.

It also enabled me to allow people who had joined the various gocarshare social media sites to vote on the winner, thereby making the process more interactive and building the site’s profiles.

Whenever making a purchase it pays to think ‘how can I get this cheaper?’ If I am buying a product or service off the Internet and I see a voucher code box in the check out process, I always do a quick Google search to see if there are any vouchers available for it; more often than not there are and it represents quick and easy savings.

Effective Marketing

Scores of people have been telling me about the importance of marketing a site effectively; that to get people using it, you have to market it very well. I totally agree, what I am not so sure about is whether it is necessary to spend a lot of money on achieving it.

I am still at the brainstorming stage as far as the marketing goes, but here are a few things that I am doing already: using social network sites; by interacting with people on twitter who are going to events where car sharing is a viable option, I am building up a big potential user database. Yes, it takes time … a lot, but it is free!

Other than that, I have a facebook site and I am also experimenting with new social media sites which I think is essential if you are to stand out:  Getgrogger is an interactive blog or ‘grog’ that let’s anyone contribute articles about your business, Sprouter is a twitter style contacting service but particularly for entrepreneurs. There are so many new sites; the key is to decide which are going to be big in six months time.

Public Relations

As far as PR goes, hiring a PR agency is only really an option if you have over £10k to launch your campaign; as I don’t, I’ll be doing the PR myself. I’ll be using all my contacts in the press and any contacts my friends have, I’ll be interacting with interesting journalists on twitter building up contacts. I know it’ll be hard work, but I also know that I can be a lot more passionate about my business than any PR agency can be.

Website Development

One area that I thought long and hard about is the website development. There are a lot of strong arguments for keeping costs down and only launching with the features that are really necessary in you first build. Then testing your product on the market, seeing people’s reaction, then going back and making changes. For me, the website, is the business – if people aren’t impressed they won’t use the website. Spending too little is a false economy, and that is why I have decided that a very significant portion of the businesses budget will be devoted to website development.

In short, the Internet provides an invaluable tool to make savings but don’t neglect to take into account the value of your own time and the fact that investing in quality really does pay.