How to start a home business for under £500: Re-visited
17/01/2008 send to a friend
This feature originally appeared on the site in March 2006 and we’ve had so many useful comments posted that we thought it’s definitely worth bringing them to your attention and to the home page.
Two years on
Most of the prices quoted in the original feature still stand today, as does the principle that you can start a business from under £500. Thanks to a number of our members for their added contributions on budget items for the home business start-up. Here's just 3 of them:
Mel Henson of Words that Sell wrote:
For the website with domain hosting, I would recommend www.oneandone.co.uk. It costs just £50 for two years, and their template design kit (website creator) that comes free with the package means anyone can have professional looking 8 page website.
For business cards try vistaprint.co.uk. They cost as little as £15 for 250, again with free 'template' designs that look very professional, especially if you pay a little extra to change the font. Plus you can have matching labels, letterheads etc.
Rachel Morgan-Trimmer of Sugarcat Publishing wrote:
As the owner of a web development agency, I do have a vested interest in this, but I would advise against designing a website yourself, unless you have previous experience. We make websites user-friendly, search-engine-friendly and legal, and it's cheaper to get someone in at the start to do all this, than to make expensive mistakes that have to be undone. Which is worse - having a bad website or no website at all? That would be an interesting topic for the forums!
Kate Bacon of Pier to Pier Coaching wrote:
Following on from comments on building your own website (and not wanting to do Rachel from SugarCat out of any business), Mr Site offers a website kit (templates which can be customised and hosting for 1 year) for £35.00. It is possible to build a good looking site to which you can also add a PayPal shopping cart (without having to know html) and is far superior to the icky looking sites produced using Microsoft Front Page! It does take time and patience however and I'd highly recommend you pay a designer to produce a fab looking logo for you.
Thanks to everyone for your comments. - Emma Jones
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Comments
Author: Cameron
Date: 13/08/2008
Comment: I wouldn't reccommend oneandone for hosting especially if you are expecting high amounts of traffic. I had some terrible experiences with them.
Website:
Author: Joel Drapper
Date: 26/08/2008
Comment: It doesn't cost that much to START a business!
For the Domain Name and Hosting Thing
Buy a domain name from somewhere cheap like www.godaddy.com or www.uk2.net then set the domain name up with free hosting from www.000webhost.com.
They also have a free template based easy-to-use website designer tool. (Not as good as custom designed, and coded along with a content management system by a professional, but it's cheaper...)
By the way,I completely agree with Rachel Morgan-Trimmer of Sugarcat Publishing.
Website: http://1stclasswebsites.com