Tips for Starting a New Business in a Virtual Office

By Erin Harrison, Executive Editor, Cloud Computing

Starting a business is not an overnight endeavor – partnering with the right vendors at the start will help ensure a smooth path toward sustainability, and eventually, growth. Just because you are a small or virtual office doesn’t mean you can give the appearance of being a larger organization. For most startups, they are dealing with limited (if any) budgets for their virtual office.

At the dawn of a new year, there are entrepreneurs who are on a mission to get their businesses off the ground and running in 2013. In fact, sometimes starting a new business is scarier than running an existing business – and think of the number of companies that haven’t started because of the fear of getting started.

Avoiding expensive rent by using a garage or spare bedroom is one simple way entrepreneurs can begin. It’s also best to delay hiring employees, or at least hire remote workers, in the early stages. In addition to these suggestions, Phone.com (News - Alert) recently provided some tips for starting a new business on a budget:

·         Embrace social media – Save money on advertising and use social media.

·         Create your own website – One thing to consider is using a blog template instead of a traditional website if you go the DIY route.

·         Take the law into your own hands – It’s easy to incorporate a business, just make sure you obey the laws and take advice for your state in particular, not for the next state over.

·         Handle your own finances – There are so many free online options for this kind of thing and if you have to do payroll or more complex financing there are inexpensive web based services.

·         Sell products online – Depending on what your company does this is a great way to gage interest in products and variations of each product.

·         Take advantage of networking opportunities – Never turn down networking opportunities.

I f you’re a small business owner, you probably will have faced this conundrum: you worked hard all your life to establish excellent credit, taking care to pay bills on time and be a good credit customer only to find once you opened your business, that doesn’t count (or if it does, you may not want it to). Now, of course, it’s your business that needs to establish good credit. Of course, without good business credit, no one will loan to you, and without loans to pay on time, you can’t build up good credit.

According to a recent article in YFS Magazine (“Young, Fabulous and Self-Employed”), there are some things you can do to try and establish credit for your small business.

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO Miami 2013, Jan 29- Feb. 1 in Miami, Florida.  Stay in touch with everything happening at ITEXPO (News - Alert). Follow us on Twitter.

Edited by Amanda Ciccatelli