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Starting a small business is no small task, and finding the best ways to get your startup off the ground can be intimidating. There are so many expenses: you need a place to do business or at least a website. You need employees, and you need accounts payable software to handle your outgoing cash. You’ll need to cover payroll, taxes, the legal requirements of being an employer, and countless other costs and tasks that you might have not even considered yet.
Let’s take it slow and start at the beginning. Here are a few tips on saving money on your startup costs.
Leasing office space is expensive. You need to pay the lease, of course, and then you’ve got things like the power and water bills to consider. Unless your business is a brick-and-mortar retail establishment, like a restaurant or bar, you could consider not having a physical office space. Instead, you could opt to have the employees work from home.
This has a number of advantages: you skip out on all those costs we covered, and you also open up your potential hires. Employees who live in different states or who have disabilities that make traveling to a normal office difficult are suddenly on your list of candidates. That’s a win-win scenario!
If your business doesn’t lend itself to a work-from-home setup, another option is to opt for a “BYOD” approach. By having employees bring their own devices, like laptops, the business avoids having to spend thousands of dollars on expensive computers. This is preferable for small businesses where you don’t need a lot of employees, and you can easily find enough potential hires with their own laptops to make this feasible.
Taking on full-time employees can be pricey when you’re just getting started. In the beginning, a good short-term solution could be to use freelancers to help cover some tasks that your team can’t get to before you consider hiring a new employee.
If a problem is a short-term one, a freelancer is likely to be the most cost-effective solution. However, if that problem keeps presenting itself, it’s time to either train someone you already have to handle that task or to hire someone specialized in that field.
Remember, every penny your business can save through these strategies can be turned back around into an investment in your continued success. Knowing where to save to keep costs down is vital for running a successful business in today’s fast-paced market.
