Free Lunches

Yesterday I missed the first Phriday Photo post since starting the blog last year. This lapse in personal discipline was due to being up most of Thursday night with a seriously sick doggy (including a couple of the darkest hours spent expensively at the not-so-local vets), followed by a very busy day with Dennis on Friday. The underexercised hairy one will be fine, although he's moping about a bit under the influence of various drugs.

Mitigating circumstances aside, I feel that I owe a debt of service to this slightly neglected blog, especially since it was never supposed to be just another place to post mostly regurgitated, mildly amusing pictures. So today I'm sharing a few useful snippets of info, should any aspiring entrepreneurs wander by...

They say there's no such thing as a 'free lunch', and they're probably right. Even when you don't pay for something up front, if you follow the cost trail far enough you'll find somehow or other you're footing the bill. Nevertheless, I've come across some genuine nuggets of advice and information for start-up businesses, readily available for little more than a small collection of internet-access, time, travel and taxpayer expenses.

Free Business Advice on the Internet

Until someone comes along with a website that organises information effectively so that you can quickly determine which are the best places that offer free advice (we're working on it), you're left with the Google keyword-a-thon lottery. Let me save you some time. This is one of the most succinct sources of info for first-time would-be Richard Bransons: Angel Blog. And, for free, the best part of the site is the Start-up To Do List.

Fancy yourself weilding business cards with CEO next to your name, but secretly don't really know what the role actually entails in its entirety? Free Management Library: Basic overview of the role of the Chief Executive.

Beginner (very) basics: if you've got an idea for a website but aren't sure what's entailed in setting it up and monetising options, try the Webpage Blueprint.

Already know where you're going, and want to listen to educated views on new media revenue models? Bookmark The Monday Note.

What's "competitor analysis" about? Here are a couple of pointers: NetMBA & Tutor2U.

In that vein, want to know what kind of traffic and stats your competitors are seeing? Alexa and Compete offer good free entry-level services. (Of course for your own stats you will have installed the excellent, cost-free Google Analytics).

Government Sources

Start at Business Link and you won't go far wrong. There's good overview information there, and you can arrange free consultations and advice with your local Business Link centre.

The Intellectual Property Office will assist you with protecting your ideas, and they arrange a free, confidential consultation with a qualified patent attorney, in conjuction with the CIPA, to consider if your ideas may be worth pursuing a patent application - expensive but probably worth the investment if successful. Member firms of CIPA will also invariably grant you a free initial consultation.

The British Library has a superb free resource in its Business & IP Centre. We arranged a free 90-minute business analysis and advice session, with a basic action plan and follow up meetings down the road to see how we are getting on.

...A spin off of all these free meetings is that they are superb practice for conveying your business idea in confidence, which I guarantee will help build, err, confidence.

I think I'll leave the funding side of things for another post, because we might start drifting off the 'free lunch' vein. However, check out the individual tax breaks on startup investments under the Enterprise Investment Scheme. Additionally, since the British public now own vast swathes of the banking sector, which has been very naughty, it is being 'encouraged' to lend money to the small and medium business sector that represents the only real prospect of dragging the economy up by its bootstraps. The Enterprise Finance Guarantee provides majority government underwriting (lending banks take the minority risk) to SME loans of £1k-£1m over a period of up to 10 years, at pretty attractive interest rates. I understand that certain banks have a quota to fulfill in such loans, and I fully intend to help them meet it.

And finally, if you're thinking about buying a business instead of starting one from scratch (and believe me, you should be: my bank is offering to provide EFG assistance to do so), then I can highly recommend the Diomo course. OK, its style is a touch "U.S. Self-help hype" and at £50 is not free. However, its information is invaluable, and in relative terms (i.e. 1/3 the cost of a middle-of-the-night trip to the emergency vets) it's a veritable bargain.

There. I hope I've added a tiny bit back to the blogosphere and feel at least partially absolved for my indiscipline. It'll be back to the silly photos next week.

If all of the above was simply mind-numbingly dull, click here to see previous Phriday Photos while you wait...