Hi Andy,

Firstly - congratulations to even have the cojones to start up on your own. I know you say there aren't many other options, but still...

I know exactly how you feel, and have been in your position. It can be tricky but is well worth it.

Try to get support not only from family and friends, but also start talking to other local businesses. You might not win a contract right away, but if you introduce yourself in a good way they might remember you when they need some work done.

One of your biggest costs in the first year will be advertising. You'll want to look at putting ads in the local papers, in shop windows etc. Also get some business cards - if you're savvy you can get 500 for about £10 from Vistaprint. Not the best quality but right now they're better than nothing!
You'll also need a website. Even if you don't intend to get much work from your website to begin with, you need a decent looking site for potential customers to 'check out' to see that you're a 'proper company'. Image is everything!!
So this is where I'd like to help - I'd be happy to make you a cracking looking website to really help kick-start your business. I understand cashflow is going to be tight at the moment, so what we do for a lot of our startups is allow them to pay for their website monthly rather than all in one go. This helps cashflow and allows you to get on with running your business.

I'd be happy to talk further and answer any web-based questions you may have. Feel free to email me: info@emediasouthwest.co.uk

Good luck!

Paul
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www.emediasouthwest.co.uk

Hi Andy

While I can understand your situation, your post can be simply summarized as:

I want to start a painting decorating company, give me 10-12k.

While that is fine and good, you did not mention what they will get in return. Why you think your business will be successful given majority of them fail?

Hi Andy
Firstly Well Done mate!Just go for it....
Follows your dream and your heart, yes, it wont be easy but if Business was easy we would all be doing it, right?
Go with your heart and be true with yourself, you will find a way, and normally find once started will find like minded people who you may be bale to collaborate with to increase the service that you offer.
There is a lot of negativity in the UK and if we just changed out attitude a little it would certainly go along way.
I wish you the best and im sure you will be a success
Cheers

Hi Andy,

My name is Bogdan and I think that your initiative is highly appropriate and it may have quite a bit of success, despite what other people may have told you so far. Although, I cannot invest at this moment I would be willing to help you as much as I can. I've had 3 businesses in the past, all of them started from scratch with less funds or no funds at all. Everybody told me it was impossible every time but I proved them wrong every time. Currently, I am running a web design business and as I've had no investor, I had to start with the same difficult steps all over again. I am willing to tell you how I've done in the past as well as with my current business (launched 5 months ago) if you want.

But first, I'll make a suggestion to you. Like in every business, people you know and you connect with are always the key. They can become clients, partners, investors or they may just give you some really good tips to help you get your business off the ground as fast as possible. For this, I use a business networking website called www.meetup.com Thousands of meeting groups where you can join for free and participate to their meetups for free. Make your connections fast and help can come fast too.

Second, as somebody said in the first comment, a website may be the most powerful and efficient tool you can use for your business. For this, I want to offer you our services for free. If you want, we can design a great website for you to promote your business, with content management system (to allow you to update any information you want anytime), free .co.uk domain name and free hosting for 1 year.

More, if you would like to hear how can you start promoting your business without paying anybody for anything, I would be happy to tell you.

Please, let me know what you think. You can contact me at info@extreme-studios.co.uk .

Best of luck