I can’t believe it’s already one week since I wrote the last report for Startups.co.uk. It’s been quite a stop-start type of week.
I had a couple of days away from entertainthekids work, doing other things. It would be great if I could just concentrate on ‘etk’, but then I’d have no cash at all, a very unhappy son and an extremely scruffy house with bare cupboards! Altogether now….aaarrrh.
Had a bit of a scare aswell. We have come up with some cracking ideas to promote the site pre-launch, but they all cost money unfortunately.
You just don’t realize how much it all adds up until you get some proper quotes, factor in the cost of any postage, food/drink or any other bits and bobs, like promotional clothing etc. Suddenly you’ve no money left! (luckily we’re just at budgeting stage, we haven’t actually spent it yet).
I should know better. When I look at our projections and business plan, I can see that we just didn’t go down to enough detail on the numbers for PR & marketing.
I’ve just assumed a nice round estimated figure. Not enough detail by half! I suppose it was because I thought at the time that none of it was crucial, and if we couldn’t afford it, we just wouldn’t do it. Which is fine in theory…
But once you’ve come up with these ideas, and believe that they will really make a difference to your business financially (ie – in our case, with lots of members signing up from day one) you begin to think that they aren’t optional at all.
So, I keep putting my objective head on and look at every budgeted figure in detail, to see if there’s any way we can get any costs down. I find that only the business owners can do this.
Anyone else (such as your marketing advisors) just don’t have the same drive to keep costs low, it’s not their money after all. I’m having to be a bit creative and think of other ways of achieving the same objective.
Although I keep trying to persuade myself that it doesn’t matter if we don’t run our focus groups in the way I want to, and don’t do the promotional work at the events I think we should, and don’t hold a launch party etc etc…..I just can’t convince myself.
I guess this is what they mean by taking risks as an entrepreneur. You only have a finite amount of money available, and at the end of the day you just have to trust your own judgment that the spending decisions you make are as efficient and worthwhile as possible. So how much of a risk taker are you?
Anyway, I’ve managed to get quite a few of our ‘promotional work’ costs down, by finding other suppliers, changing venues, and just haggling a bit wherever we can. So things are still very, very tight, but I think we can progress with our ideas now.
If only we had some track record, or could scientifically evaluate whether these activities are going to be financially viable or not…..but our marketing guys (Gavin at Champion to be precise) made a very poignant comment to me – although not helpful at all!
Apparently, David Ogilvy said – “Half of all marketing doesn’t work. The problem is, no-one knows which half”. Great.
Also, we’ve been told we are definitely one of the three finalists in the MEN Venture Award – now how fantastic is that?! It means we will get coverage in the Manchester Evening News as a case study, so we may get some benefit from word of mouth, and we also get a mentor for a year. We have been told we can choose our own mentor, and I didn’t need telling twice!
So Ross and I had a chat about some people, mulled it over, and finally today decided who we think will be most beneficial for us, in an area we feel is our skill gap.
We both know him, and know we’ll get on with him, and really respect his knowledge, so he’s ideal for a mentor.
Matching personalities is so important with these types of things, I’ve heard loads of nightmare stories about mentors/non-exec directors/business angel investors etc who had a clash of personality, or just didn’t all work together to achieve the agreed objectives for the business.
I rang him today, and explained what we were doing, our USPs, what we’d already achieved (in a nutshell) and how we’d been ‘gifted’ the use of a mentor by MEN & Venturepoint (I’m not exactly sure who’s paying for it).
He was delighted, flattered and sounded genuinely interested in our business. After ringing Venturepoint, it was virtually all agreed, so we’re meeting him next week to go through some more specific things in our business, and to give him more background information.
Now I know we’ve got a great team around us, there’s no stopping us now!
