Telegraph Small Business Connect

You still need to come up with a solid idea, build a brand, put effort into marketing, and provide excellent customer service. But there are ways you can bypass many traditional startup costs, such as initial inventory, warehousing, and retail space. Businesses operating in places with thinner finance markets miss out too.

Search our growing library of articles, videos and downloadable guides for small businesses. From legal compliance to digital marketing, grow your business with resources written by industry experts. SmallBusiness.co.uk provides advice and useful guides to UK sole traders and small businesses. Our goal is to help owner managers and entrepreneurs to start, run, grow and succeed in business, helping turn your business idea into a profitable business.

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Both the UK and EU use the following annual turnover amounts to define the size of an SME. The number of staff that a business employs is one of the most widely accepted ways of indicating SME size. These figures can often change from country to country, but below are the official benchmark figures as set out by the EU and the UK. So, just how do we answer the question ‘what is a microbusiness?

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Coronavirus exposure, day care closings, and rising costs has left parents with no choice but to take care of their kids at home. Landscaping, also referred to as lawn care, means modifying and maintaining the visible features of an area of land. You’re responsible for creating beauty out of natural, living elements like flowers, grass, and trees. On the service side of things, Let the Dog Out offers dog walking and “bathroom breaks” to its customers.

Learn more about key start-up topics such as business ideas, business planning, and sales and marketing. Digital products like music, courses, podcasts, and templates are unique on this list of low investment small business ideas. There aren’t recurring manufacturing or shipping costs to worry about, so your margins can remain high, making it another no-brainer for being one of the best businesses to start. Although it's possible to run a small business without accounting software, this approach is more time-intensive and error-prone. For example, spreadsheets typically don't update in real-time and can't be used to automatically reconcile lots of payments across multiple bank accounts. Modern accounting software enables business owners to submit accurate, compliant tax returns to HMRC.

With many of the small business ideas explored in this post, you may not be shipping your products, but you still need to cover the cost of shipping. Consider your shipping costs and how they will vary in the different countries you want to serve. Luckily, marketing is a lot easier when you’re catering to a specific target audience or identity (e.g., vegans, board game lovers, photographers in your city).

Some insurers focus exclusively on a company’s turnover, whilst others place the most emphasis on its employee headcount. For some insurers, the key issue is whether the company is owner-run, or whether it’s a subsidiary branch of a larger company group. Learn how to reduce your risk of late payments and what to do if you find yourself a victim of them with our guides, resources and practical advice. Start your FSB membership today and unlock a wealth of market-leading benefits, services and advice designed to support your business every step of the way. The video tells the story of an SBRI Northern Ireland initiative using live data to match the needs of patients with appropriate skilled pharmacy staff in real time.