By edith on 06-14-2010

Running a business is not easy…You need to market, sell, deliver, provide customer service and whole bunch of other things while keeping your cost low. In the beginning stages of your business set up, survival is key!

I’ve got a bunch of tips from the community on how to run your business on the cheap.

….Here’s 10 which are among my favorite…

1. Co-working Space –Instead of renting an expensive office space with cubicle walls that prevent you from seeing other people, why not consider co-working spaces? Typical office rental in San Francisco costs at least 1-2k per month. Renting a co-working space typically costs you between $300 – 600 per desk. Plus you get to meet other people, make new friends and network.
2. Heard of Google docs anyone? You can now share all your documents in the cloud. Plus it’s free! Who buys physical servers anymore that costs thousands of dollars?
3. Fax Machine – what is that? Ever heard of eFax? You can sign and fax without ever wasting a piece of paper. Be nice to the environment!
4. Get a virtual assistant – do not waste your time booking meetings and setting up appointments. There are tons of great virtual assistant who speak perfect English and can do great work communicating on your behalf, making calls and sending emails. Check out Elance and oDesk.  Read 5 Places where you can hire virtual assistants.
5. Phone system – having a desk phone is so yesterday. Who sits at one place to pick up the phone? Check out all the super easy to use and cheap virtual phone systems.  Read 7 Cheap Ways to Answer Your Business Calls.
6. Outsource your HR department - making sure you are compliant is just NOT a good use of your time. My guess if you probably don’t want to be an expert in worker’s compensation anyway. Doing this will help you focus on running and growing your business.
7. Outsource your accounting and bookkeeping department – don’t even THINK about doing it yourself. It will be the biggest waste of your time.
8. Web design - check out Weebly, Yola, Wix and WordPress. Many of these platforms have templates and pre-built designs that are really professional and web 2.0 capable. There is really no need to start from scratch anymore.
9. Use Google hosted email $50 a year (enterprise without ads) or free per user….you can’t beat that!
10. Design work – Crowd source your design project. Instead of 1 – 2 people thinking about your project. Get 100+ people don’t think about it. Check out 99Designs, Logoworks and all.

About edith

Edith Yeung is the Founder of BizTechDay and SFentrepreneur. She is also a lecturer at UC Berkeley International Program and committee member of the San Francisco Small Business Week. She has previously worked with AT&T Wireless, Oracle, Siebel, Autodesk, Cisco Systems, Symantec, American Management Systems (AMS), Telstra Australia, Matav Hungary Telecom and Taiwan Semi-Conductor.

One Response to “How to Run Your Business on the Cheap [List]”

1. Marcellus Spengler Says:
   August 1st, 2010 at 6:23 am

   Many individuals are resorting to many different types of this, as conventional methods are becoming more complex and displaying more unwanted effects. your posting explores many of these different sorts of methods and ways in which the benefit us, thanks! thanks

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