The Startup Costs You May Not Need To Pay

When launching a startup, there are many costs to budget for. However, you may not always have to spend as much as you think initially. By cutting costs, you could make launching a startup affordable – reduce the necessity for borrowing or crowdfunding. Below are just a few examples of costs you can probably do away with.

Private office rent

Having a private office is not always necessary. In fact, it’s possible to run many businesses from home. This could save huge amounts of money spent on rent, energy bills and office maintenance.

What if I have to hire employees? Or what if I have to conduct meetings with clients? A virtual office is a way around this. It’s possible to hire remote employees and communicate via phone, email, instant message and video call. Meanwhile, you can conduct phone meetings and video meetings with clients.

Meeting up in a coffee bar could be another solution if you prefer to talk in person. Alternatively, you could look into flexible office spaces for SMEs – this includes shared office spaces in which you can rent rooms or desks for when you need them.

Office-based companies aren’t the only types of businesses that can save money by ditching traditional premises. A growing number of budding retailers are starting up online stores. Restaurants can meanwhile be run from ghost kitchens at home or food trucks.

You can also consider packing in the idea of running a physical office. Instead, you could do it all remotely and purchase a virtual office address instead.

Buying equipment

There may be a lot of equipment that you have to acquire for your business. However, you don’t have to buy it. Many forms of equipment can be leased or hired – which can greatly reduce upfront costs.

For example, you can rent computers, which can then be upgraded every few years. Printers can meanwhile be hired for single uses. Or you can outsource a printing company to carry out your printing order for you.

Recruiting staff

Hiring some staff members could be crucial to some businesses, but less crucial to others. If you’re looking for help with admin tasks like accounting or even answering the phone, you may find that it’s much cheaper to outsource services to carry out these tasks.

The cost of outsourcing a service is almost always cheaper than hiring a full-time employee. Not every duty can be outsourced, but you’ll be amazed by the types of duties that can be.

Professional web design

Do you really need to pay a professional to design your startup’s website? Free website builders can allow you to create a professional website yourself from scratch. You don’t need any coding knowledge and the end result could look just as high quality for a fraction of the price.

Of course, such website builders are better suited to simple websites. If you want to design something more elaborate, then you may need to hire a professional web designer. Similarly, once your company has grown to a certain level, it may be worth hiring a web designer to create something more unique and professional. However, as a small startup, you usually don’t need a professionally designed website.