Business Startup: To-Do Checklist
As promised, I’ll be keeping you up to date on all the tasks and processes that goes into creating my new business - {radiiate}. I’m sure you’ll agree with me, that there’s a whole bunch of things that needs to be put into place when creating a new business; and even though it is a very exciting experience, it also requires a lot of time (and patience if admin tasks aren’t your thing).
So here’s a progress report:
Creating an identity
The first thing I did was to decide on a name and create a logo for the new business venture. In my opinion, it is very important to get this out of the way first, as you need to be able to visualize your dream business and without a name / logo, that’ll never happen.
Business Cards
Many people will argue that business cards is not needed for online professionals, as their website / blog / online portfolio becomes their “business card”. Even though I might tend to agree with that argument, a lot of corporates still prefer exchanging business cards - so it is better to be prepared (and have your business card ready) when go to a project pitch with the big-wig corporates…
Anyway, this means that I had a 1000 cards printed for {radiiate} (will still post photos of them, when I find the inspiration to photograph them 
) and they’ve already been pretty valuable on a few occassions.
Registering a company
This is super, super important - you have got to distinguish between your own, personal finances and that of the company. So I’ve registered a Closed Corporation (CC) in South Africa - basically a Limited Liability Company - to allow me to have a separate legal entity to work with. Since I bought a shelf company (I needed to have a company that was already registered on 1 March this year for tax purposes), I’ve filed for the changes to the name and members’ details - which should take about 2 / 3 weeks to be approved.
Hiring!?
Since I don’t have offices yet (I’m still living the freelance life and working from home), I haven’t been able (or interested really) to employ anyone full-time. I have however established relationships with a bunch other freelancers, to whom I can outsource work on-demand. In addition, I have found a local designer / coder to basically work for me on a freelance basis, whereby I send him work on a daily basis and he bills me per hour (as I’m booking out 90% of his time at the moment, he is almost an employee, except for the fact that his remuneration is not part of any of my overheads).
Remaining To-Do’s
I’ve still got quite a bit to do, before I can say that I’m running a new business… Here’s the most important things that still needs some attention:
- Bank Accounts. I’ve already got a meeting at the bank later this week and I need to get my business accounts sorted out ASAP, as all of my current income is going straight into my personal account. On the other side, I’m not overly keen on getting more bank accounts, as all it means is that I have to pay more monthly bank charges…
- Office Space. I don’t even want to talk about this, as it has been a real mission finding office space in my area! I’m not keen on driving more than 10 minutes to work every day and I can’t afford a massive place - which means that it has been difficult finding something appropriate. But I’d really like to move out to an office by the end of July to allow me to collaborate more efficiently and have a dedicated meeting space to meet with clients.
So what do you make of all of this? Got any experience in this regard?
(Image by ~dontvu219)
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Creativity is not a commodity! Or is it?
I had a very interesting discussion with a designer friend of mine about whether a design or a designer’s creativity can be seen as a commodity… And both of us agreed that neither of these are a commodity and a designer should thus demand to be paid a premium, project-specific price for his work - instead of selling a “generic” skill at a commodity price. Nothing will ever change my opinion about this, but this post about how Coudal have found a balance between design products and services has summed out where my head is at… Let me explain…
Design & Uniqueness
My reason for saying that design can’t be traded as a commodity, is due to the fact that a commodity will be sold over and over, which means that several different people will end up with your work and none of them would have a unique solution. But obviously, when you go to say a web designer for a redesign of your website, then you want an unique design - right? So considering that it is impossible for a designer or design agency to trade with their skills & creativity on a commodity market.
But there’s a way around it - as Coudal has proved - and sub-consciously, I’ve already been implementing this “mindset” into my own operations…
Design “Products” & Premium Themes
If you read through Coudal’s About Page, you will find various mentions (and links) to some of their other business models / revenue streams. At the core, they’re still a design agency (of sorts), but they’ve managed to diversify their product offerings, so that they don’t need to rely on custom design work. All of their products / services are still design-related (to a varying extent) - so they are still leveraging their core competencies. And in my (sometimes humble) opinion, they haven’t “sold out” or betrayed any kind of design ethics or principles (read: design is not a commodity).
Now to some extent I think I’ve managed to replicate this (very successful it seems) model when I set up Premium News Themes last year. Back then, I wasn’t thinking about business models, passive income streams or design commodities; instead I was just focused on running a profitable online business through my freelance skills. My main aim with Premium News then, was to supplement the income I was generating from custom design work.
So what the premium themes does, is to take all of my skills (design, developing, WordPress etc) - the same skills I’d apply to custom design work - and basically commoditize itself into a more generic product offering. At the core, all of the work that goes into the themes is design-related, but because it is geared to be generic and sold over and over, it has become a “design commodity” of sorts.
Resource Constraints, Passive Income & Crappy Custom Design Work
In my mind, there’s two main reasons why this model works so effectively…
The first one is the fact that a designer (or design agency with 10, 100 or however many designers) will always face time as their main resource constraint. Unfortunately there’s only 24 hours in a day and any design / development gig will demand x amount of hours and there is thus a limit on the amount of custom work that anyone can handle. By commoditizing a design product - you’re essentially sidestepping that limitation, as our themes (for example) will continue selling without requiring more development time (sure there are other tasks i.e. admin, support etc. that does take up time, but not as much as development).
Second consideration (and this ties into the first), is that by implementing this mindset, you’re creating a passive income stream that is not dependent on your time and attention (which is the limiting factor). So you’re diversifying your business (making your monthly revenue more stable), whilst also growing it without having to invest further resources (time & attention).
The last point that I allude to in the title of this section is the fact that the themes has allowed me to be very picky when choosing what custom design projects I will be taking on (something that Coudal mentions as well). What this essentially means, is that I can choose the most inspiring projects over the most profitable ones (if I want to). So the whole “when you love your job, you’ll never work again” vibe comes into consideration, which is always a great work platform to have.
What does this mean to you?
Whatever you want really… I blogged about this, since the Coudal post got me thinking about the principles and business models involved (something I’m quite passionate about) and once I realized that my premium themes was nothing else, I figured that it deserves a blog post.
I’d reckon the most important thing to gain from this information / discussion is to always keep the possibilities in mind i.e. don’t pigeon-hole yourself into only doing one thing, because that’s the way the average person does it. If you’re a freelancer of any sorts, there must be another business model you can experiment with to supplement your earnings.
Just think about it… Use it don’t use it…
(Image by =Barbroute)
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Online apps that’s worth using
I must admit that I never thought that online applications would ever replace desktop software solutions, but in the last couple of weeks, I’ve been using some applications that are doing just that… I’ve been using Basecamp, Freshbooks and CampaignMonitor on a daily basis since getting back to freelancing and they’ve been worth every single dollar I’ve spent on their monthly subscriptions (in the case of CampaignMonitor, you just pay for the emails you sent out).
So yes - all three of these applications are premium services, only available on a paid-for basis. This means I’ve included some other online applications that I use for free (i.e. Gmail, Twitter etc.), as these aren’t necessarily replacements for desktop software (as is the case with the other three I mentioned.
Here’s a quick summary of how I utilize the three applications at the moment:
- Basecamp: I do all my project management and collaborations on there now - albeit with business partners, collaborative designers / developers or clients. Using Basecamp has already cut down on my e-mail considerably and I think the fact that everything I’m working on at the moment, is in one place - really makes thing so much more efficient.
- FreshBooks: I’ve actually just started using FreshBooks and have only sent out a handful of invoices, but I find the interface so refreshing and easy to use. I’ve been using their Time Tracking Widget for MacOSX (which is fantastic for tracking your time on client projects) and I’m in the process to explore their integration options with Basecamp.
- CampaignMonitor: What a joy to use! After blogging about this a while back, some of you suggested that I try out CampaignMonitor and I have seriously not looked back yet. The features are just incredible and it is super-easy to design a newsletter. I’ve been using it primarily for communication with users of our Premium News Themes. The best feature (by far) has probably got to be the reports that you can generate for individial newsletter campaigns (i.e. tracking the amount of opened or bounced e-mails, whether links were clicked etc.).
All three of these applications has really become part of my daily operations and have added a competitive edge to my business activities. Sure, these cost money - but so does desktop software and considering that I’m just starting out a new business, this is a really cost-efficient solution for me. I also believe that the future cross-integration of these applications will only add further value, with early-adopters benefiting the most.
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{radiiate} - Growing, Going Forward
About a week ago, I mentioned that my business had not grown as much as I would’ve liked at that stage and that I felt as if I had gotten stuck a bit… Well today, I’m glad to finally be able, to give you an update on my “business-creating” activities during the last 6 weeks, since quiting my full-time employment gig.
Creating a new business (establishing a brand, legally formalizing the operations etc.) is never easy and from the get-go, I’ve been under the kosh in terms of having to handle all these admin tasks, whilst still being part of all my development activities. So the very first hurdle for me, was brainstorming a trendy, new name for my business… After going back and forth with a few ideas, I finally settled on {radiiate} (if you click through, you’ll get a “coming soon” screen where my new website will soon be housed).
Along with the name, you’ll also notice that I’ve already had a logo designed as well. I realize that a logo and website might not have been top priority (as I could’ve probably just started out by using my blog as the only contact point for prospective clients), but I felt I needed to be able to identify with this journey I’m embarking on and without a logo it seemed kinda faceless. From the thumbnail to your left, you’ll also see that the logo was designed to be very flexible and that I’ll be able to adapt it to whatever purpose it is needed for.
So yeah, I’m obviously very excited about the next few months and a lot of things are falling into place… I’m looking for some office space close to home now and I’ve already taken another young designer under my wing and who’ll be working with me on all {radiiate} projects. I’ve also decided to create a new category - Creating a Business - where I will continue to blog about all the issues / decisions / aspects related to establishing {radiiate} as a new business venture.
As always… Let me know what you think!
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