Tips for Saving Money When Running Startups

[mandy]

From Mark Cuban's blog:

...anyone who has started a company has their own rules and guidelines, so I thought i would add to the meme with my own. My "rules" below aren't just for those founding the companies, but for those who are considering going to work for them as well.

1. Don't start a company unless its an obsession and something you love.

2. If you have an exit strategy, its not an obsession.

3. Hire people who you think will love working there.

4. Sales Cures All. Know how your company will make money and how you will actually make sales...

full article: http://www.blogmaverick.com/2008/03/09/m...-startups/

On the same subject, Jason Calcanis with How to save money running a startup (17 really good tips)

# Don't buy a phone system. No one will use it. No one at Mahalo has a desk phone except the admin folks. Everyone else is on IRC, chat, and their cell phone. Everyone has a cell phone, folks would rather get calls on it, and 99% of communication is NOT on the phone. Savings? At least $500 a year per person... 50 people over three years? $75-100k
# Rent out your extra space. Many folks have extra space in their office. If you rent 5-10 desks for $500 each you can cut your burn $2,500 to $5,000 a month, or $30-60,000 a year. That's big money.
# Outsource accounting and HR---such a no brainer.
# Don't buy everyone Microsoft Office--it's too much money. Put Office on three or four common computers and use Google Docs...

full article: http://www.calacanis.com/2008/03/07/how-...good-tips/

...and a response to the above 2 articles :

8. Leave Your Ego At The Door. In a startup (or any technology company) the most important thing is the end user and the product. Your ego is less important than these things. People work in this field because it’s a meritocracy, your coworkers are young (or youthfull), you affect the world and make customers happy without having to—eek– actually interact with them, your startup might be huge or it might be nothing, you might get rich or you might go broke– it’s exciting. But hey, more than anything, this is supposed to be fun. Smile while you’re making sales calls, staring at excel or writing PERL— it beats selling insurance. Be nice to those junior to you– if for no other reason than they’re a job or idea away from being Mark Cuban or Mark Zuckerberg (As a rule of thumb, be extra nice to people called Mark) and because the tech industry is a very small world. Don’t be arrogant: Nobody knows everything about technology and nobody ever can...

full article: http://www.misanthropytoday.com/2008/03/...-startups/