Leasing a commercial property isn’t the best option for a lot of businesses. Therefore, if you have made the choice to buy your next business property, you are opening yourself up to more flexibility and more freedom to allow your business to grow.
That said, there are a lot of important areas to take into account when searching for the ideal commercial property.
The Maintenance Costs
Alongside your fixed monthly outgoings, you’re going to have to prepare for maintenance costs over time, and any unexpected issues that may arise. This means you should consider any commercial property that you view with the expected maintenance costs in mind.
For example, are there any structural features of the building which you see as having a high maintenance bill? Does the sheer size mean more maintenance should be expected?
Maintenance is always a must, no matter the building, so budgeting for it is essential. You should also seek out a dependable maintenance service such as urban-propertymaintenance.com.
The Need for a Survey
Having any new potential business property professionally surveyed is a must. You shouldn’t elect for the cheapest and quickest option, either. Although it’s preferable to save money, you will lose money in the long run if you fail to have a property survey in the first instance, resulting in your property running into problems further down the line. Ensure that you have a thorough survey carried out, which is specifically tailored for commercial properties.
The Location
Your location needs will vary depending on what your business entails, so you’ll need to think carefully about yours. Location can be a crucial factor in the successful running of your business.
Consider the following:
Do you have clients regularly visiting your business premises? If so, the property will need to be in an easily accessible location, and close to your main clients.
Do you have a large team of staff who will work on site? If so, the property will need to be easily accessible for them, and not difficult to travel to.
Also think about the impression that you want to give of your business; you need the property and location to reflect this in a positive light if you are going to have external individuals and clients visiting the commercial property on a regular basis.
Transport Links
This is an imperative consideration if you have people traveling to the premises on a daily basis, whether they are staff or clients. If your new commercial property is near plenty of public transport links, such as train stations and bus stops, then this is a huge positive.
If you can’t find a property which is close to public transport links, or if your commercial premises is in a very remote location, then you need to ensure that there is at least a car park for staff and visitors.
A commercial property in a remote location, without a car park, and far away from any public transport links, will be very problematic and may be seen as unprofessional if you are failing to provide these needs.
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Coworking is a new concept of an open working environment that allows several unrelated companies to share office space and work together. According to Statista, there were around 22,4000 coworking spaces worldwide by the end of 2019. With the rising popularity of shared workspaces, more and more businesses are launching coworking marketplaces. In other words, they are just like Airbnb.
When Airbnb offers vacation rentals with homely amenities, a coworking space marketplace offers office spaces with unique amenities for individuals and businesses. The coworking marketplace efficiently connects coworking space owners looking to rent out their unused office space with individuals and businesses looking for vacant shared work spaces.
In the coming years, we will be seeing tremendous innovation in the field of building and running coworking rental marketplaces. There is no better time to launch your coworking space business. Before we start, let me establish this- There are no easy ways to launch a coworking marketplace and make it successful. Following a sound business strategy and understanding, best practices are important.
Things to consider before starting an Airbnb for coworking
The whole world has been taken aback by the potential of coworking space marketplaces and you are on the right track with launching a coworking rental platform. But running a successful Airbnb for coworking requires a lot of planning and effort. Here are some of the core things to consider before starting your own coworking marketplace that helps you to take your business to new heights.
Research your target market
Whether you are creating a coworking space platform from scratch or using a white label solution, there is no way around doing thorough market research. According to studies, lack of market research is one of the major reasons why startups fail.
To build a viable coworking space rental marketplace, you need to have a clear understanding of the market, how the industry looks like, your target users, their requirement, and the solution they are looking for. Pay attention to market trends as well to spot any big changes like technology breakthroughs so that you can use it for your business advantage.
Choose the right business model
It is a great idea to design a viable business model even before starting your coworking marketplace. Now, the exact way your coworking space rental platform makes money will depend on a lot of factors. However, there are some common business models to consider.
Service fee
It’s a great monetization strategy of any peer-peer marketplaces to charge service providers a service fee each time they receive and process a new booking on your platform. The more transactions your marketplace makes-the more revenue you get. The host service fee can be 3% or more and can vary with different countries. You can also incur service free from guests which can range up to 20% of the booking subtotal. For example, Airbnb takes a 20% service fee from guests and a 3$ from the hosts.
Listing fee
Your coworking marketplace can collect listing fees from coworking space owners when they list their space on your platform. It can be a flat fee or vary based on the total reservation made or any other parameters. To reduce friction, you can consider collecting the fee once the transaction is completed instead of doing it at the time of listing. Airbnb charges a 14% host-fee from property owners according to its new policies.
While these are the common business models- You can add more than that including the following.
Adding premium subscriptions
Collect payment processing fee
Promote sponsored listings
Setting your own ad system
Carefully plan your operations
Creating a coworking space management tool is one thing and successfully running is something completely different. As you have to manage two user types, bookings and scheduling, payment processing, and a lot of other functions together, the operations can get a bit complex. Hence, it is important for your rental marketplace to have all essential features that support the operations carried out on your platform.
You will need specialized marketplace payment gateways that allow users to book coworking spaces and pay effortlessly. Implementing an in-app communication system is also essential to set a channel for all your users to communicate regarding scheduling, booking, and cancellation.
Optimize your platform’s search to deliver high performance
Search is one of the most critical interfaces of your coworking office space rental marketplace users leverage these features to interact with your platform. Significant engineering goes behind a smart and intuitive search that performs well. If you take the example of Airbnb, the smart search is one of the most powerful features of this peer-peer vacation rental marketplace.
A typical search for any coworking marketplace should support the following search features.
Location
Coworking space type
Price range
Availability
Amenities
Capacity
Meeting rooms
And more
Improve the booking flow and experience
To deliver a great user experience to all user groups, your coworking space platform must have a seamless booking feature. When a coworking space owner registers in your platform and activates his listings, the people who are looking for rental office spaces must be able to view and book the space.
Consider instant booking as opposed to normal booking feature as it is the preferred way for hosts to rent out their properties. With proper identification verification services, you can allow service providers to reliably list their coworking space for instant booking option so that users can make instant bookings.
Dealing with Last minute cancellations
Building and running a successful peer-peer coworking management software requires you to think from a user perspective. For example, Airbnb allows hosts to cancel the booking at the 11th hour. When thinking from a host’s perspective, this is an absolutely great feature, but if you think from a guest perspective, this might not be a pleasing feature. Hence, your marketplace must have smart ways to deal with last-minute cancellations considering the interests of both user groups. To reduce last-minute cancellations, you can add a cancelation fee and block booking dates. Another great alternative would be to reallocate another similar coworking space to the user in case a service provider cancels the last minute.
Conclusion
Building an Airbnb for coworking is a different thing and scaling it to millions of users like the real Airbnb does is another thing. Implementing the above-discussed things will help you to run your peer-peer coworking marketplace successfully and gain a competitive advantage in the industry. Happy Coworking!
About the Author
Shirley C. Stewart is Business Consultant and Marketing Head at RentCubo. She helps brands to build their web products that people love using. Shirley has a passion for growth hacking and startups.
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The first step in raising revenue for an entrepreneurial start-up is to outline a detailed marketing strategy. It is important for start-up entrepreneurs to test their assumptions as soon as they can. A big reason for the success of established companies is that they never invest large capital or significant time on any project unless they have determined that it has an overwhelming probability of success. The corporate world taught me that most ideas fail in the marketplace. When this happens, it should fail quickly and cheaply. You just want to make sure that you are not overwhelmingly hurt when you experience this inevitable fact.
Complete the following exercise carefully before you launch your marketing campaign. Accuracy in this exercise will be crucial to your future business success:
1. Decide who is your ideal customer – Most entrepreneurs start with a great product or service idea, but fail in correctly identifying their ideal customer and instead will sell to anyone who buys from them. This is probably one of the biggest mistakes I still see today, especially in the online world.
There are two main reasons you want to determine who these ideal or dream customers are: first, your ideal customers will appreciate your offers and will pay for it based on your value, not price; and second, they are more likely to refer more business your way.
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Ajay Prasad owns GMR Web Team, a digital marketing agency dedicated to helping businesses maximize revenue from internet. He also invests in web-based start-ups. Ajay also operates a seven-figure web based business, GMR Transcription, which he built from scratch and grew it by using strategies that he uses for his digital marketing clients.
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When you’re starting a company you only get once chance to make a sterling first impression.
A startup logo is perhaps the essential part of your initial visual presentation.
Without a great one, you’re going to be in hot water with potential investors.
But with that great logo? The sky is the limit. So, let’s jump right into some great tools which can help you create the logo your company deserves.
1. Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Illustrator is the gold standard of graphic design programs. It’s a vector-based, highly customizable program that allows you to get to the meat of the matter quickly and easily.
While it’s not overly complex for a graphics program it’s not something most people can just pick up and run with either. You’ll need to invest some time into learning about the program itself.
It’s also rather expensive. Illustrator is one of Adobe’s subscription programs, running around $21 per month instead of you playing a flat fee upfront. If your business isn’t going to be graphic intensive you may want to skip it.
Still, it’s not hard to see why it’s often the first choice people go to when they’re branding a startup.
2. Affinity Designer
Affinity Designer was originally an Apple only program but a few years back the company began releasing its software for Windows use as well. It offers most of the features of Illustrator without the high cost.
Designer is a bit less user-friendly than Illustrator but it’s become the choice of many graphic professionals just getting started in the business. It can be bought for $50, making it an attractive option to many.
The program can be used for any high-end graphics work that needs to be done and remains a great vector tool for freehanding designs.
It’s not quite industry-standard yet but it has a decent market share for professional designers, particularly newbies and dabblers who don’t want to pay monthly for Adobe’s programs.
3. Gravit Designer
Gravit Designer is another excellent option for those looking to design a logo. The service features an annual charge for the pro version but its relatively modest at roughly $50 annually. The free version is still solid enough to allow for great logo designs.
This is another vector-based program, which is important for logos since you can re-size vector art without loss of quality like you’d experience with design programs that are only based on pixels.
The free version is only usable online and allows for limited export options but it’s your best bet if you want a professional-quality program to create a completely unique logo without having to shell out for software.
4. LogoMaker
LogoMaker is another tool that gets frequent use. The price can seem to be a bit much but if you lack any real graphic design skills in your startup’s pool then you may find it’s worth the cost in the end.
LogoMaker allows you to input your company name and has a wide variety of different templates to choose from. With a bit of thought put into the other essentials of the design process you can still use it to create an enduring, iconic logo.
That said, it’s not as free-form as the first few tools on our list. That makes it limiting for those with artistic skills and it costs roughly $40 to buy the logo once you’re done using the online tool so it doesn’t save much money in the end.
Still, it’s an excellent option for those who don’t have access to professional graphic design in the office.
5. Logo Design Studio Pro
If you’re looking for a combination of a one-time upfront charge and user-friendly logo creation then you’re in good hands with Logo Design Studio Pro. It’s also a vector-based program to allow for nearly infinite resizing.
This program is much more customizable than many of the logo specialist tools out there and comes with thousands of different templates that you can work with while you’re creating your logo.
The only downside? It actually costs more than some of the professional graphic design programs out there. You’ll take a $60 upfront to get access to the program.
Still, the combination of price, customizability, and preset configurations make it an excellent tool for a startup just beginning on their graphic design.
6. Canva
Canva makes an excellent argument for being one of the best low-cost graphic design programs around. The program is actually completely free to use provided that you’re using their basic elements and you can even import your own without any additional cost.
They offer a large array of other professional elements as well, but they cost $1 each.
Which… isn’t bad if you’ve been paying attention to the costs of most of the programs on our list. Its main drawback is that it’s not super customizable but it’s powerful enough to create a professional logo with an amateur at the helm of the design project.
Canva is probably the cheapest way to produce an exceptional and professional logo for a beginner. Just be aware that there’s some serious limits on creativity in the program for those who really want to get wild.
Make Your Startup Logo Design Quick and Easy!
Your startup logo is there to put your best foot forward.
The careful design takes time, even if the end result seems quite simple. For most, it’s simply a matter of finding the right program to begin the process. There’s something out there for every skill level and taste, so give one of the above programs a shot.
It’s quick and simple to get started, however, so why not get started today?
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Finding the courage and enthusiasm to finally start your own business will be a huge stepping stone in your life. Whether you’ve got a passion for a particular industry or you’re looking to leave your dead end 9-5, there are so many advantages to becoming an entrepreneur. However, before you get too excited about being an overnight millionaire, you need to think realistically. Your great business idea won’t be enough to get it off the ground; you will need a whole load of motivation, marketing techniques and a strong mindset. Once you have mastered these key elements you will have the confidence to launch your business and keep it running for years to come. Before you jump into the deep end, consider some of the following ideas and implement them into your business plan.
Quality over Quantity
In business you simply cannot run before you can walk. If you try to do too many things at once, you’re going to get overwhelmed and frustrated. Let’s say you’re working in the medical equipment manufacturing. It’s better to supply one or two excellent and innovative products than sell every item under the sun. You will also want to make sure your products are high quality and suited to your target demographic. Nowadays every supplier needs to think about medical equipment coating. As medical devices become smaller and more compact, the use of Parylene coatings finds increasing value due to its molecular level deposition. Overall, you need to make sure you do thorough research into your particular industry, so that you can create the best quality products in your market. Having a “quick fix” mindset just won’t work if you’re in it for the long haul.
Solving Your Target Audience’s Problems
When you start a business, your initial goal should be to solve a problem that your target audience has. Try not to think too far ahead and focus on your specific reasoning. Perhaps you’re an accountant who can help other businesses save time or maybe you sell an innovative product for the home that can solve people’s issues right away. You need to have your target person in mind and use them as a way of channelling your business goals.
Your Business Isn’t About You
If you’re starting a business because you want to make a quick buck, then you’re doing it for all the wrong reasons. The truth is, your business is more about your consumer than you. Although you might have a special passion or interest, building a business isn’t going to be easy. Of course you want to be passionate about the industry you’re entering, but you can’t think about yourself too much. Put yourself in the shoes of your target market and think about what they want rather than what you want.
Forget Imposter Syndrome
When you’re just starting out in the business world, it can be very easy to feel like an imposter. If you don’t have a huge amount of experience you can definitely feel like a fraud too! Be assured that you aren’t the first person to feel like that. You are most certainly worthy of being a business owner, so you need to believe that too. Have faith in your own abilities and forget the voice in your head that’s telling you you’re not good enough.
Your Competitors Aren’t That Important
Stop focusing on your competitors for a change and think about your own pathway. Yes, you need to use other businesses to model your own, but you shouldn’t be too focused on what they’re doing. You will start to feel overwhelmed about where they are if you think too much about what they’re doing. Laser focus on your own goals and you will be much more productive.
Giving Up Isn’t an Option
It is much easier said than done when you’re not seeing any improvements, but you simply have to stay motivated when it comes to your business. If you’re truly passionate about what you do, you should never want to give up. You’re going to have tough days that feel like a hard slog, but every entrepreneur goes through this. Sticking to it is the sign of a true pro and you will get there in the end.
You Have to Invest Before You See Results
Don’t forget that you need to spend money to earn money; you won’t be making millions overnight if you don’t have a good amount of start up capital. Depending on your business type, you will probably find that most of your money is spent on advertising in the initial months. This is because you need to spread the word of your business and get your target audience to start noticing your products and services.
Professional Marketing Goes A Long Way
Don’t be afraid to pay an expert to help you out with marketing. Yes, there is a lot you can do on your own, but this will only get you so far. Save yourself the time and stress by hiring a digital marketing agency to help you reach your business goals.
Patience and Persistence Pays Off
Once you have established a good sense of motivation and an entrepreneurial mindset, you just need to be patient. Your success won’t necessarily happen overnight, in fact it definitely won’t. Finding your feet in your target market will take time, as your ideal consumer needs to learn to trust you. If you’re in this for the long haul you will easily be able to stick to your goals with a patient and persistent attitude.
So now you will see how important your mindset and motivation is when starting a new business. Obviously marketing is very important too once you have the foundations of your business laid out. Along the way, all you need to remember is that you should only focus on one thing at a time. Creating less overwhelm for yourself in the initial months will keep your mindset on track for a thriving business in the future.
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