Starting a business - best course for business studies

Bonniepurple

I'm learning a load with the OU (BA in Business Studies). I' using it partly to be able to set up as self employed and partly to further myself at work. I gained Brownie points at interviews due to the self discipline needed.

Tiddlywinks

BunnieJ wrote: »

Thanks. Just looked them up and realised I've already been on their website...unfortunately their workshops are pretty much all during the day when I'm at work

To succeed you're going to have to get a 'can do' attitude going.

Everything will depend on your ability to just get on and do it... not just think about all the reasons you can't do it.

Honestly? You have to look at yourself and decide if you have what it takes to be self sufficient in the bad times (which can hit any business). Your past threads just don't seem to project that kind of personality.

I don't want to be on a downer here BUT where's your drive, determination and zest for your dream? Where's the vision?

If you don't know exactly what you want to do in business then going it alone is probably not for you right now.

BunnieJ

Tiddlywinks wrote: »

To succeed you're going to have to get a 'can do' attitude going.

Everything will depend on your ability to just get on and do it... not just think about all the reasons you can't do it.

Honestly? You have to look at yourself and decide if you have what it takes to be self sufficient in the bad times (which can hit any business). Your past threads just don't seem to project that kind of personality.

I don't want to be on a downer here BUT where's your drive, determination and zest for your dream? Where's the vision?

If you don't know exactly what you want to do in business then going it alone is probably not for you right now.

So I've applied for a free business course with Vision2Learn and am awaiting my application pack

I'm also going to visit Outset to find out some more about what they do, as I have a few days off work next week (there aren't any workshops I can make, but but I think I should still go and take a look).

I was in town with my OH today and there was a large food market set up with people selling their goods/take away food etc. It would be the sort of thing I'd hope to do with my business, and it kind of gave me a feeling of "why am I not selling my product here?" Usually there would be a similar style of stall to compete with what I do, but I was surprised to see there wasn't anything there today! (Not to say there won't be in the future). It was actually really helpful

Atm I only have the seed of an idea, but at least it's a start!

WHA

As others have said, a "formal" business studies course is probably not your answer here. I find that the academic courses are far too theoretic and don't actually cover the basics of someone starting their own small business. They're usually looking more at the bigger picture setting people up to be managers for larger organisations. I've certainly had new clients coming to me with a business studies or finance degree, able to draft a perfect business plan, but still asking the same basic "how do I start" questions as you are doing, i.e. food prep regulations, H&S, what taxes, what insurances, etc., etc.

I've read your posts on this thread and think that you are in a very good position to start the process of your own business. Firstly, whilst you are apprehensive, you are clearing thinking about the pitfalls and that's good because you're already identifying the potential problem areas, rather than burying your head in the sand! Secondly, you've got a job, whether you like it or not, and that will pay your living costs enabling you to start a part time business without there being any pressure on you to earn a living from it - you can set it up small scale, just covering it's costs, to learn "on the job" as it were, where you'll pick up your business skills in a safe environment, until you're ready to bite the bullet and go full time with it. Probably one of the biggest stresses and potential causes of failure is the pressure of your new business having to make enough money, almost from day 1, to feed and house yourself and family - that usually means making poor business decisions, just to get a bit of cash in to pay the rent that month - as I say, you won't have that pressure as long as you keep the day job!

If you've no money behind you, then you have no choice but to start small scale. Talk to the council, people CAN use their own home kitchen to make food for resale as long as it complies. You can get your personal food hygiene certificate relatively quickly and cheaply - usually a local college do short courses or I think you can research it yourself doing an online course. Plenty of places where you can hire a table for low cost, not just street markets, but also car boot sales, summer school/village fairs, garden shows, and lots of other outdoor rallies such as traction engines, vintage cars, etc. Your only costs are petrol to get there, the food ingredients, power at home to do the cooking, and the stall rental. Even if you sold nothing, you've probably "lost" no more than a hundred quid - more likely you'll sell enough to cover your costs, but more importantly, your experience gained is priceless, i.e. researching finding the event, booking it, planning the purchase and making of the ingredients/food (i.e. costings, time, etc), dealing face to face with customers to gauge what they really want, how much they'll pay, how many customers you can handle, how many customers you can expect to see at such an event, etc. Like I say, that's priceless research that a college course could never give you!

You've no money and need your wage to live, so you have no choice but to start small. Even if you had a business studies degree, you'd still have to start small with no money behind you and unable to give up the day job. Loads of successful businesses started with nothing. It's called boot-strapping, i.e. start tiny, earn a bit of money, plough it back into more stock, earn a little more, plough it back, and so you build up your business. What's even better is that you've virtually nothing to lose. The downside is that it takes a long time to build up - the upside is that you're learning on the job during that time which will make you a better business owner.

I have a client who started with just £500. Husband was made redundant - the payoff covering the next year or so of household costs. Wife had two very young kids, one just starting primary school, the other barely out of nappies. So, no immediate need to make profits, but likewise, little money to start. Wife had a hobby (can't say which as it may identify them), and was frustrated that whilst she knew certain components/products existed, they were hard to find, more expensive than they needed to be (mostly had to be imported), and would be used by a lot more people if they were readily available. So she set about researching the manufacturers and suppliers - after a lot of Googling and emails/phone calls all over the world she found someone willing to sell to her on a small scale and spent her £500 on a single order for her first product - a box of a single product, costing around £2 each. She put it on ebay and sold them for a tenner each over a few weeks. Once she saw they were selling, she ordered another £500 worth of a different model of the same range, which also started selling, and within a few months, she had several varieties of this product regularly selling on ebay. Because she didn't draw out the profits, she could constantly re-order every few weeks as the cash built up. Eventually spreading out into different products, and because the supplier could see the sales, they granted her a credit account, so she could buy more and pay a month later. And so it spiralled. After a year, she started her own e-commerce site (self taught) and then the business just grew and grew. After 8 years, ended up employing a couple of dozen people, turnover £1.5million and net profit (after all wages and expenses) was half a million per year. Last year they sold out and are now in early retirement just approaching their 50th birthdays. All that on an investment of £500 and a lot of research and self teaching via Google - to this day, they still never spent a penny on web-designers, never had any formal business studies education, never paid for search engine optimisation, never paid google adwords. OK, they lived and breathed the business and spent an unhealthy amount of time Googling and at times almost living on the business forums, but no one can they that they weren't self taught!

Everything you'll ever need to know is only a click away these days via Google. Think how hard it would have been 30 years ago without computers and the internet. That's why the number of tiny "one man" businesses is growing at a rapid rate. It just didn't happen 30 years ago! As said above, there are excellent business forums, like http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/ full of experienced business owners and people just starting out who are helping each other with their questions, giving advice, etc. Maybe even mumsnet if you can get through the whingeing - plenty of start up "mums" talking to eachother about business topics.

My advice would be to stop thinking and go out there and start doing. First thing is to contact the council and find out about whether you can use your home kitchen and what certificates you need (food hygiene etc). If you can't use your home kitchen, then perhaps think of other things you can sell. I go to lots of car boot sales and there are usually stalls selling sweets - you can buy in bulk and sell in smaller bags for a profit - it won't make you a millionnaire, but it's low cost, low risk, just to get you out there, again researching where to buy the stuff, where to sell it, how to deal with customers, what customers want, etc. For the moment, forget making profit - work on developing your own skills, researching various business tasks, but do it in a low risk environment - tell yourself it's just like a college business studies course, so no pressure on you to make money, just concentrate on not losing too much!

robatwork

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/starting-a-business

Free....