I have now been working for almost ten years from home, and most of my staff works from home too. Apart from being an eco-friendly way to work, it saves people time and frustration to travel in and around London to come to an office, where we all sit in cubicles or offices. In the days of broadband internet, Skype and OnlineOffice, there is no need for an office, even to have meetings.

Offices, like cars are are often nothing else but status symbols - what other reason can there be for a small business to have an office? If that is true then how is the office helping with your business, it’s a big expense. Seriously, if you do not have clients coming thru your office doors several times every day, why have the office. Even if you have, do really all your people need to be in the office every day? I guess not!

We are in an economic downturn, what is more important - your ego or your business - ask yourself that every time you walk into your office. I’m sure there a good reasons for some micro businesses to have offices, even so I currently can’t think of any, but I’m convinced in most cases a healthy bootstrapping and outsourcing mentality would be more beneficial for your business.

Unless the first business goal is to feed your egomania, you need to have a good hard look at your cost structure to survive in these times. — ST.

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Here comes the BUT! You need to be careful, for bigger business does not always mean better business. While there is no limit to the size of a bootstrapping business - see Shawn Hessinger on “How big can a bootstrapper be?” - it never the less can be a risky strategy to grow through acquisitions. I put some basic pointer for your consideration below:

1. Businesses come with people and all the associated problems - so make sure the culture fits;
2. Target group should be identical to yours, i.e. serve the same customer base, so you get more turnover for both businesses;
3. Synergies - find them and make them work for you - by sharing resources you can lower the cost-structure in both businesses;
4. Distance - make sure you can easily be in both businesses, so keep it close;
5. Level of debt in the new business - make sure you can handle it easily, don’t risk your current business.

There are other points to consider, so good and trusted advice is absolutely essential. I guess here you will have to decide if you are a gambler (bad) or just a risk-taker (good). Since you made to this point I shall hope you are an entrepreneurial risk-taker.

So, if you are anything like me, you’ll be thinking “Screw it - let’s do it!” ST.

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It is living with this change and realizing the opportunities change generates that is the important process here. So how could a small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer- or Personal business, like professional, contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants go about seeing these opportunities?

The answer sounds easy, but requires patience, you need to look at your chosen market segment from the out-side. You have to become a judge, not a participant. Look at all the trends and judge them, find ways to improve upon techniques and find out what people are talking about.

Don’t be blinded by your own business, if you already have one. You must realize, that you can ignore or unfairly discredit someone else’s idea today, only for them to come back and kill your business tomorrow. Fighting a trend is futile and a wasted opportunity.

If something you see is better, appropriate it, in business that is called “best practice sharing” or “benchmarking” - within reason of cause! ST.

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Entrepreneurs are not unlike the physicists or philosophers, they ask themselves - consciously or unconsciously - the same question:

• What if …. I could make cubic eggs?
• What if …. I could make that cheaper?
• What if …. I could make it easier to use?
• What if, what if, …….

This has got to be the most entrepreneurial question even. Often finding the answer is not the problem, finding the question is.

So, how can you cultivate an environment conducive to “What if….?” questions? Look outside of your box, read books from other business entrepreneurs, try and see how they made a change work for them, read your wife’s Cosmopolitan - your husband’s Mens Health magazine, look at other industries, ask your kids what they like, be interested in anything and ask yourself all the time, what if…..?

Your customer calls to complain about the last order - what if? Your assistant is unhappy with the coffee-machine, what if? What if, applies to all aspects of your small business or startup business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer- or Personal business, like professional, contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants:

• Customer Care & Support;
• Sales;
• Marketing & PR;
• Accounting & Credit Control
• especially Business Planning, and so on ….

It just does not end, you may not be the next Einstein, but I bet you, you will get some pretty good answers from yourself, if you bother to find the right “What If….?” question.

Some “What If …?” questions get me regularly quite excited, and keep me awake all night with excitement about the possibilities - so go forth an “What if…?” - a little, or a lot for that matter! ST.

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Virtual Assistants can set up all their clients with OnlineOffice, and work with all their clients at the same time, each client is only a “click” away. Whatever your virtual service is, typing, bookkeeping, web-dasign, translations, telephone answering, diary management, PR, it does not matter with OnlineOffice and the Quick Switch facility you will easily stay in control.

Accountants can use this in the same fashion, so when a client calls, “switch” to the up-to-date data and give advice. This service is also available for the free accounting software module, so no excuses there.

One other use is if you have more than one company of cause, then you can switch between your businesses easily. Combine this with the benefits of online technology and it eco-friendly impact, and you will be excused for feeling good about your business.

To use this technology, all you need is your find your LiveNet ID - in My LiveNet > My Profile - give it to your client and he/she can set you up as a user on their OnlineOffice system and restrict what you have access to.

This means you can work for anyone in the world who uses OnlineOffice, or you can add contractors, virtual assistants, freelancers or free agents to your system at will.

Great bootstrapping and outsourcing opportunities for your small business, don’t employ people for temp or non-core functions, Quick Switch them. ST.

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While LiveNet is an online marketplace for your services and products, which allows you to promote your business to others and find others to help you with work you need to have done. It is also a great place to make new business friends and share experiences.

The PR tool has been around for some time and we have registered this RSS feed with many different search engines and news sites. Using this free service will give your small business web coverage, sometimes even the old media picks it up.

Give it a go - it’s free - and that makes it a great bootstrapper tool. ST.

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Virtual Export Assistant: You may know, or can find a business which has a great product, but they don’t export yet. You could offer your services for a particular country and become their Virtual Export Assistant for that country. You use your language and local knowledge skills and open up a new market for this small business.

Virtual Import Assistant: You could source - using your language and local knowledge skills - products in other countries for retailers in your country of residence. Or you could help the foreign business to import into your country.

But remember you are working with small business and start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer- or Personal business, like professional, contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants, you need to keep the price low for them. To do that you can offer your services to ten or twenty businesses, each paying you a retainer of about $200 - 400/£100 - 200, this makes it affordable for them and low risk, while presenting them with sales opportunities. If they pay you a small commission on top, you are generating a nice little income for yourself.

For this kind of service it would be advisable to get a low cost telecom service for your calls abroad, sometimes you can get fixed monthly subscription pricing for unlimited calls - have a look around.

Other than that your setup cost should be low, if you have computer, ADSL, and telephone. Monthly cost including telephone could be as low as $90/£45.

You can work from home, have your work-life balance and do it on a shoe-string - these are the business ideas I like. ST.

NOTE: If you have any problems with setting something like this up, give our 24/7 live support a “click“, they can help you.

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You could get some pre-designed portal software, blogging software or a forum to set up your portal and then write about local events, with things like this:

• Live events - like Live Jazz in the local pub,
• New Business launch - write about the company, people and products;
• Evening Classes - anything from cooking to phontography;
• Club News - what time they meet, run a prifile.
• For Sale Section - from paperclips to houses and cars

You get the idea, there are many more events you could report about. Take leaflets around to get it started and then get revenue from ad’s of local businesses, clubs, for sale ad’s, and get paid for event announcements. Have a look at your local paper that will give you some idea, what people want.

It will get you involved in many areas of your community you didn’t even know existed, get you out of the house, make new friends and earn you some money - what else can you want. One day Google may pay you some money to supply local news to them, who knows?

There is money to be made in each locality, be the first and hog the niche first. Work from home, keep it cost effective, then the set-up should be about $150/£75 and the monthly cost no more than $20/£10, assuming you have a phone, computer and broadband. ST.

NOTE: If you have any problems with setting something like this up, give our 24/7 live support a “click“, they can help you.

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But not only that - lets face it, if you want free accounting software, you could try the open source arena or other suppliers, even Intuit offers a watered down version of their accounting software free of charge - but a whole raft of other benefits can be gained by using our award winning product:

• Free 24/7 live online support - so when you work after 5 pm, we are still here to help and you do not have to pay for it;
• All future software updates are free of charge as well, so you will never have to pay for new or updated accounting software;
• Data backup and security included - while we all know nothing is ever absolutely safe, we back all your data up continuously and our investment in security would be unobtainable for small businesses, because of cost and complexity;
• All the benefits of online software (SaaS) - means you can access your accounting, write invoices and plan your business from anywhere at anytime.
• Online technology is eco-friendly - no shipping, no packaging, no manuals (help text in software) and our ClimateByte Technology.

All you have to do, is sign up for our free 30 day trail of OnlineOffice, or our free LiveNet and you will have free accounting for your small business, forever.

Let’s face it, nobody makes any money doing their bookkeeping. At least with WinWeb you don’t have to spend any money, not to make any money. ST.

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• 90% sales and marketing
• 10% product development

Let me quantify that a little. Before you start in business, and the clock is ticking, sort of speak you should have a two things:

• at least one order for your product, to see if someone will actually buy it, preferably more orders if possible and
• the product to sell, which you will have produced in your spare time, while still having an income.

But from the time you launch your small business or start-up business, like SOHO-, SME, SMB-, Micro-, Lifestyle-, Home-, DIY-, Hobby-, Boomer- or Personal business, like professional, contractors, freelancer, self-employed, sole-trader and virtual assistants, you need to spend most of your time on selling and marketing, because that is what brings the money into your business.

Many thousands of businesses go bust every year with a “perfect product”, but no sales. So get a product out there and sell, sell and sell. If you then have time develop your product further or develop more product. By now you will have had some feedback from your clients and they will guide you as to what they would like to buy from your next.

That is the bootstrapper way of doing it, in my mind the only way to do it with the least amount of risk and on a shoe string. Remember the aim is to make money, not to spend it. ST.

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