A few weeks ago I was contacted by an old sales colleague of mine who’s in the process of starting a new company. He asked me to consult him on both the sales and technology sides of his business. If anyone knows, he knows I love a healthy challenge and starting a company on a shoestring budget is right up my alley.
I forgot that at one point in my career I wore a grey suit, drove a company car, and had accumulated enough Holiday Inn points to take my family on a vacation. I know a little about sales and a lot about the technology needed to get his sales organization off and running. I use the phrase “off and running” in the nicest way because his budget is far from company cars and American Express cards.
Four hundred dollars per salesperson is his budgeted technology expense. His plan is to purchase a company owned computer for each salesperson including software necessary to run the business. I sat back in my chair and started laughing at the notion of such a limited budget. He was seriously expecting to get away with spending under $2000.00 for five employees.
I digested the idea over a few days and came back with the idea of using used computer hardware and opensource software for each workstation. Eliminating Microsoft from the equation and using a Linux based operating system and software reduces the cost of each machine by around $400.00 per system and limits the potential of future operating system issues.
I found a computer liquidator who sold me five retired Hewlett-Packard desktop computers and monitors for $100.00 per station. Each came with an Intel Core2Duo processor and 2GB of system RAM. For an additional $80.00 each I outfitted each with a modestly sized hard drive. All that was missing were the keyboard and mouse.
Windows 7 or 8 licenses are around $120.00 per copy so I opted to install Ubuntu Linux which is completely free. Rather than install Microsoft Office, I downloaded and installed the latest version of OpenOffice for Linux. OpenOffice advertises itself as 100% compatible with the industry standard Microsoft version. Provided the salespeople use the ‘save as’ command to save their documents as .DOC files, anyone will be able to open the files.
Professional salespeople use something called contact management software to monitor sales progress. One of the big names in the industry is Act! by Sage. Act! allows salespeople to monitor sales contacts and keep track of the sales process. My buddy’s problem is Act! is roughly $200.00 per license and may not be necessary for the sales process he’s employing.
He found a cloud based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution which is accessed through a web browser like Firefox. Insightly makes a product available through Google Apps that is accessed strictly through a browser. Insightly is free for three users and can support a limited number of contacts. We figure his future budget will increase to a point he can afford to purchase their unpretentious $29.00 monthly plan which will allow up to six users.
Though I may not agree that moving to opensource and free technology solutions is the best idea for a business. I do understand that new companies may not have the capital to invest in completely new products and technologies. My personal belief is using commercial products would allow my friend the benefit of technical support which he most likely will not get with free.
Starting a company on a shoestring budget may not be the best approach, but for many new entrepreneurs it’s the only way. I started my humble little company with $200.00 in my pocket and a ratty old computer a customer was tossing. Making do with what you have is sometimes the only approach when you want something bad enough.
(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. located at 509 Main St. in Gardner. You can text him directly at (978) 413-2840 or visit www.LocalComputerWiz.com.)