Every so often I get asked a question along these lines: I’m short of cash but a business consultant/web designer/marketing expert has offered to help me out in return for equity. Should I accept his offer? No you shouldn’t. Never and I mean NEVER pay for any business expense with equity. To explain why lets [...]

A lot of business experts, business books and business start-up courses will tell you to look for a business opportunity with little or no competition. As a result budding entrepreneurs spend ages looking for new business ideas, trying to find the elusive new idea that no one else has thought of. Unfortunately doing so is [...]

When you are running a business you need to avoid being vague. If you’re vague about what you are selling, then your customer may be disappointed and irate. If your marketing was too vague they won’t even know what you are selling, why they’ll want it or where to find you and you’ll fail to [...]

Yes I get the irony, here’s me a self proclaimed “business expert” telling you not to trust business experts – and I mean it too. Let’s be honest, most business experts have no experience running a business; no formal qualifications as a business expert (partly because there aren’t any; before you ask, no an MBA [...]

Every so often I hear of a business owner, or new entrepreneur who has been advised to "sell at any price" or "just get any sale you can to get you going". No matter how well meaning it is, that’s bad advice. You should never agree a sale unless you’re going to make a profit [...]

I know, it’s odd advice for me to give you considering this blog is ultimately about starting a business, but don’t start a business. You probably don’t really want to start a business anyway. Go on ask yourself, why am I reading this? Do I really want to start a business? Did you ask yourself [...]

Every entrepreneur dreams of coming up with a innovative new business idea. It’s exciting. We’re going to change the world, making it better, faster cheaper, greener and we’re going to get rich doing it! Unfortunately the reality is that new business ideas suck. It’s harder to get people to invest in new business ideas, because [...]

Far too many would be entrepreneurs spend their lives wishing they could start their own business, but never do. Why? Because the are continually looking for The Big Idea. What sets the successful entrepreneurs apart from the failures or even worse the never-even-started is not an amazing new business idea, it’s the execution. Look at [...]

Sooner or later you’re going to have to share your idea with other people. You might be looking for a business partner, an investor, a supplier or even customers and you’re going to have to tell them all about your business if you want to succeed. In fact the more people you can tell and [...]

Welcome to a new series – How Not To Start Your Business. There are hundreds of books and blogs (including this one) that tell the budding entrepreneur how to start and run a business and many of them are excellent. Unfortunately the reality is that when starting and running a business you’re more likely to [...]