How To Create A Low-cost, Low-infrastructure Start-up

19/03/10

By Joe White, COO of Gandi.net

Over the last couple of years, there have been a number of tools and techniques which have been developed for businesses which make it easy to establish and operate a start-up with minimal investment. While the costs of your products and their development may be significant, we've highlighted below a number of tools and techniques that can be used to establish the branding, IT infrastructure, marketing and also working practices for a cost-conscious start-up.

Step 1: create your company brand the cheap way - There are a number of interesting services for creating a logo and...

...branding in a cost-effective way. For example, Logoworks.com, a USA based start-up works with a network of keen amateur and professional designers to create logos for cheap. You send in a brief which gets distributed out to all the designers and then you get to pick through all the different ideas. It's a great example of online collaboration and you can get a logo professionally designed for as little as $299.

For many start-ups, apart from the logo and branding, the look and feel of the company online is going to be the most important thing. Spend a lot of time thinking about your domain name as this will impact how memorable your company is, and search engine optimisation (SEO). Also, depending on the level of complexity your site needs, you can also consider building the website yourself. Do-it-yourself website building tools give you basic e-commerce functionality and can help you develop a professional looking website with no previous experience. Try moonfruit.com as an example.

However, if your site is more than just an online presence for your company or needs more than just basic e-commerce functionality, you'll probably need to employ a professional web designer.

Step 2:... continued on page two >

 

 

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