Hi Folks
My full time job contract with my employer ended recently and now I am out of work. I am in my mid forties, so finding it a bit difficult to get a job. I am now thinking of starting up my own business.
Can someone tell me if there is any free business advice/mentoring available from any organisations for people in my age group? I would need advice from the very bottom i.e. deciding on what type of business to start up, and the way to start it up etc.
By the way, I did contact my local business of chamber of commerce regarding this, and was told to look on line !!
Thanks in advance for your responses.
Hi,
My advice would be unless you are going to start up a business that you know a lot about then don't start one, it isn't easy and most start up businesses fail within the first 12 months of trade.
I know you spoke before about a chip shop, this wouldn't be too bad, but again if you don't know anything about the business it self then be very careful or you could lose a lot of money trying to make it profitable.
If you were going to go ahead, then I would look at something that doesn't take a lot of outlay to start and also something that doesn't cost too much in expendature, something you could do from home maybe so that you don't have the cost of runing business premices as that is where most of your money will go, that and staff so if you can work from home with just yourself going out too customers then that would be the best. A lot of companies are now trading on line only to sale goods through ebay and similar sites so that could be something to look into, maybe import some stock that you think will sell and start listing the items, you can package them at home then so wouldn't need to outlay any money up front except for stock and pacaging, you will have to be organised though with getting things shipped.
Maybe if this is something you would consider, then go out and find some things that you think would sell from the high st or costco buy small amounts and see how it goes, if they sell well you could then look at importing higher numbers at lower costs and start to make money.
I don't know if there is any online advice about starting a business though.
GTTS
Thanks GTTS
If you google, Prince's Trust Business Plan Templates, there may be some information which may be of help to you.