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How to start a low-risk web business

Posted on 14 Apr 2009 at 11:01

Take the Grant for Business Investment (GBI), which provides discretionary grants to small and medium businesses in areas of England, helping them to "modernise or diversify" with up to 15% of a project's total expenditure. The Prince's Trust, on the other hand, aims to encourage entrepreneurs below the age of 30 who don't have a barrage of academic qualifications to start their own business.

Business Link says the type and size of grant depends on the business and location. "It varies across counties, regions, sub-regions - even individual towns have their own grant sources," said e-business advisor, James Cope. "It's best to go through to your local Business Link team to find out what you qualify for."

Cope advises start-ups to apply for grants as soon as possible. "The key thing is to get a business plan sorted and then start making the phone calls right away," he said. "It might not be a start-up grant, but there might be one available a year or two down the line, so you can budget for that."

Moo.com's Moross says that start-ups shouldn't be afraid of sacrificing equity in their business if the right offer comes along. "Taking money from investors involves parting with some of your business, but they bring credibility, experience and contacts. The business I run wouldn't be where it is today without taking funding from the shareholders I did," he said.

There are ways to avoid spending money too. Microsoft's BizSpark program offers free software licences to companies that have being going for less than three years. Companies have to be recommended through a Microsoft partner, but once in they get access to software such as SQL Server Enterprise and Windows Server 2008, as well as free marketing and technical support.

Office rental firm Regus is also offering start-ups free access to meeting rooms and office space around the world for up to three months, under its new Get Started scheme (www.regus.co.uk/getstarted). The rooms could be used to help devise a business plan or hold meetings with potential investors.

How to build your site

Once you've decided on the type of site you're going to build and finalised your business plan, the next step is working out how you're going to build it. You could choose to learn the skills yourself but, as Kevin Partner discusses on p142, there's a lot of poor advice out there - you could end up not only wasting your time, but harming your business.

Many businesses will seek out a professional web designer, and the importance of having an attractive, cleanly designed site can't be understated - both in terms of appearance to potential customers and search engine optimisation (see Attracting the search engines). Sites such as Elance (www.elance.com) allow you to pitch your website requirements to freelance designers and have them tender for the job, which can be a cost-effective method of finding short-term design help. Remember, however, that you'll need to update the content of your site frequently, and paying a freelance designer to change a photo or update a product page could become both costly and time-consuming - or your designer might not be available when you need them to update the site. Ensure, therefore, that you know how to make basic changes to your site's content and that you retain full control of the domain registration and hosting, in case you need to move your site.