Starting up on a budget vs the deception of freemium
Thinking of starting your own business and becoming your own boss? Congrats! It’s the first step towards the personal freedom you deserve. I found the experience incredibly liberating, and whilst yes it was daunting, I knew I was the 100% master of my own fate, and answerable solely to myself (for better or for worse!)
For me, I was under no illusion that it would be hard work, but I tried to make value decisions rather than penny pinch to the maximum. For sure it’s important to quickly realise that starting a business for most of us is nothing like the crazy whirlwind adventures portrayed in movies about tech start ups on multi-million dollar budgets, but also on the other side to realise that the cheapest options are not always the ones that will pay dividends.
Freemium access to quality business tools is a great way to experiment with apps and software upon which to base your business. Do your due diligence, sign up and take some time to make pro’s and con’s about each and ensure you know exactly what will work best for you.
My advice would be that it's worth spending a good amount of time and money on the foundations of your business, much like you would a house. If you get this part right, it makes things a lot easier further on. It’s like the base of a pyramid.
I sat down with a blank sheet of paper and conceptualised what processes and procedures I had in my business, from sales processes, to accounting processes and operational processes. I then shopped around and looked for various systems, software and apps that I thought could best support these systems I had in place in my mind. From there I would choose say 3 systems to trial for each the sales, accounting and operations processes.
Some solutions offered a fully integrated solution, some were modular, some easily integrated into my web browser and could save information really quickly and easily, others were more complicated, some were free and some were not. The comparisons go on.
One thing I did decide on though was that after looking at pricing, I would not end up taking what I considered at the time to be the best CRM (customer relationship management system) for my sales processes. Their model was that it was free until paying basically no longer became a problem, however the prices it jumped to were exorbitant, and I would at that point have to start all over again with a more affordable CRM option. I can tell you now I realized that the time and effort that would take when I was fully established would not be worth it compared with paying a smaller, more consistent amount on a system that I could grow with.
I followed this logic with accountancy and operational systems too and I’m pleased to say I am still using them to this day (albeit with a bit of fine tuning).
I still take trials and get a lot of beta access to new business apps and software just to see what’s out there. I have probably trialled/used close to 150 different business tools since 2017, so I’d be delighted to assist you should you have any questions about how to find the right solutions for running your own business.
Remember, no matter how complicated (or not) your business might seem, in 2020 the chances are that there is genuinely ‘an app for that’.
Let me help you figure out the best apps to streamline your business
