Starting a business
 

i have always wanted to work for myself, only recently have i taken step to starting my own business.

just curious has anyone on here tried to start up their own business before?
would like to hear experiences good and bad?

I did a free level 2 business enterprise course 5 years ago & got a phonecall informing me I was being awarded level 3 as I'd exceeded expectations.

I thought "hmmm, looks like I'm fucking good at this" & proceeded in finding & developing a business idea.

I did allllll the relevant research on the product, competition, advertising, costs, all that shit. And worked out a marketing plan. I did everything by the book & following what I'd learned, but...

Then I got hooked on mephedrone after it was made illegal (we'd been selling it over the counter beforehand in a head shop) & sold it purely to fund my own habit. The purpose was to make money of course, but it didn't work that way. Each week I'd make £300/400 for the boss, & use £300/400 of meph myself. I just got high as fuck for 5 days a week, sleep a day or 2, have something to eat, receive a delivery, & repeat the process, for about 6 months.

Then I gave up drugs & had this moment of realization that I was meant to be working as a drug counsellor, & the rest is history.

So, I did have a plan to go into business, but my plans took a detour into the wrong kind of business.

Before that I was excited as fuck about my new venture, working out my costs & I saw potential for ridiculously enormous profits, so big I couldn't believe.

However, when I reviewed the work I'd done a year before, during which time I'd completed a diploma in financial management (whilst off my head I should add. Also, mephedrone made me smarter no joke ) I realized I'd been all about business costs, & had neglected to even consider the legalities - tax, national insurance, corporation tax, etc etc. So I'm not sure it would have been successful after all.

What's the "steps" you have taken?

My advice is to take a course in business. There are a lot of free ones floating around. If there's a local enterprise centre or organization they run these programmes, free.

It will give you a basis from which to work from, as well as having ongoing support after you've set up, should you get that far. They can even fund it for you.

I'm turned self employed in February, although its really just a bit of a cop out. I don't have a physical office although for legal purposes my house is classed as my companies business premises & I don't have anyone who works for me. I just contract/consult for whichever company has a vacancy for what I do & get a day rate, but no benefits - no holiday or sick pay, pension, medical etc. Hired an accountant who I just pay a fee every month to do my books.

Worth doing, depending on what you do, you can make a lot more as opposed to if you were staff.

Yes I'm a business owner. I'm not going to just type random experiences, do you have any specific questions?

Level 3 diploma in small business financial management.

That's what I done so I'd be able to do my own accounts & save money. It was one evening a week for 8 - 9 months, 80 hours. I think it was a couple of hundred quid. It covers 8 modules..

Keeping of records, VAT, payroll, the preparation and interpretation of final accounts, taxation and reporting to HMRC, costing and pricing of products, management of working capital and financial planning and control.

I've no idea how much hiring an accountant is per month, but a qualification like this would save you this cost.

Same here, well worth it if only for the tax break.

Yeah, I obviously don't take the full amount every month. Its my company that invoices the client, and then from that my company pays me a smaller amount.

Dan, in the grand scheme of things its not that much. TBH I can't be bothered with the hassle - much easier for him to take care of it and keep me right.

It costs me around ~£400 a year, and it saves me generally more than I would pay HMRC, its generally just worth it for peace of mind, plus the guy knows more than me about what can and can't be claimed against, I just feel more comfortable having somebody to query about it and let them deal with it.

this i hate.

having ur own business is fucking shit. its a ball ache.

i haven't paid myself a wage from this business since it began a year ago.

grated at the end there is a pay off, but I'm not doing it coz i want to work for myself I'm doing it for money.

Anyone who thinks working for urself gives u more freedom is a complete moron.

It depends on what you do & how you do it. I still work 9-5 (well actually contractors are generally required to do a 9 hour day, chuck in an hour for lunch and its 10), still have a manager to report to, the only difference is I earn a lot more than if I was doing the same job as an employee.

And yeah as D!ce says, compared to what your earning, paying an accountant a small fee per year isn't really an issue at all.