Free software for small businesses - OpenOffice & LibreOffice

If you work with the Internet much you've probably already heard of open source software.  If not, you are in for a treat!  Open source software is usually free and is not owned by one company so there aren't proprietary issues involved.

I've used OpenOffice at work and home and other then not being compatible with Works for Windows (the home version of MS Office) it works great.  It includes a word processor (like Word), database (like Access), spreadsheet (like Excel), drawing, and presentation (like PowerPoint).  One of my favorite features of OpenOffice's Writer is that you can save documents into PDF format.  That is both a convenience and a money saver!  OpenOffice, while being open source, still has some oversight by Oracle.    For small businesses that expect to grow, OpenOffice has more capability for scaling up because Oracle offers a business version of the suite that includes commercial support for $49.95 per computer.

LibreOffice is newer and is strictly an open community open source project.   But it has more language options (as in foreign languages) than OpenOffice.  See this extensive review for specific details about both.

The upshot for me is that either one would be good enough for now.  Since my start-up is probably going to take at least a couple of years to get going, it's particularly important to keep my costs down.  I imagine that's true for many start-ups.  I can always switch to the commercial version of OpenOffice or MS Office when the business is running a significant profit.

Sources for free business forms

There are a few places that offer business forms for free which saves entrepreneurs time and money.

Entrepreneur's FormNet - Many of the forms are free, but any labeled as 'Premium' are provided from a secondary site, Docstoc, for a fee.

Free Business Forms from Suite101 (and sample letters) 

Top 10 Places for Free Business Forms Online from Home Business Wiz

IRS Small Business Forms and Publications - All tax related.  Forms for business structures.

Microsoft

Office Depot

Small Business Administration

The Small Business Development Center for your area will have free forms on site.  At least the one near me  here in Oregon does.  Since they are convenient to me I can pick up any forms I need (or even better a CD full of them) whenever I go over to the office.

State governments provide a number of forms for small business so it pays to check your state's official site and search for 'small business' or related topics such as incorporation, licenses, state taxes, trade names, etc.

Other possible sources:

• Check your city's web site or city hall for forms related to your business, especially for licenses and taxes.
• Check professional associations related to your business, they may offer free forms online related to your business. For example, the National Press Photographers Association offers forms related to photography.
• Local public libraries, especially large well funded ones where staff have time to create lists of links.  But many will also purchase books that may contain blank business forms.  When in doubt chat with your local reference librarian about what if available at your local library.  An example is the New York Public Library's site.

SCORE

While I've registered I haven't dealt much with the SCORE site yet.  This organization sounds pretty good because they offer mentors, local workshops and events (if you are lucky enough to live in the right location), lots of targeted articles, and some online tools.  Unfortunately they don't have a chapter in my town; in fact the nearest one is in Eugene, Oregon, which is a good 2 1/2 hour drive from my location.  But given you can use some of their resources online it still looks pretty useful.

What makes them attractive to me is that they are a non-profit whose purpose is to support and educate current and potential small business entrepreneurs including providing confidential business counseling, and at no charge.  The confidentiality and being free are the most important elements, although there are others.  Since I currently have a full time job it's going to be a while before I have my business up and running and making enough to cover my business expenses.  Plus I don't have prior business experience so I know I'm especially vulnerable to making costly mistakes.  Lastly, I have never been fond of needlessly reinventing the wheel in order to complete a goal.  Especially since I'm not going to have any spare time to waste!

Business Plan - outlining

I did write a draft of the first section of the SBA business plan template that I discussed yesterday.  Then I skipped through all the other sections.  At the end SBA's template generated a general outline with a cover sheet, table of contents, and what I had written so far.  For whatever reason their generated plan didn't have any paragraph breaks!  Fortunately I had already copied and pasted into MSWord (along with their section and review bullets) what I had written.

I've gone on to another section at the SBA site, the Essential Elements of a Good Business Plan, to get more information about business plans.  Looking under each of the sections listed there gives a lot more insight into what I should be writing.  There are also a couple more parts to the business plan under this page, with 9 sections to the template generator's 7.  The template generator is briefer and more general in scope.  This is probably fine if you are just trying to get started.  In fact, they offer an even briefer list of elements if that works better for you. 

I've found that just copying and pasting the whole mess, both the outline bullets from the template and the more extensive and verbose sections under the 'Essential Elements' page, into one document works for me.  I'm now going through and replacing their text with my proposed company information a bit at a time.  I just have to keep in mind this doesn't have to be perfect yet since I hope to find a mentor at my local SBDC (see prior posts) to go over this draft with me.

Writing a business plan is hard

It shouldn't be hard but somehow every time I sit down I go blank.  So this time I'm going to try the Small Business Administration's 'Business Plan Template.'  Supposedly once I've gone through all the steps the template/form will generate a completed plan.  While some business owners never create one, if I want to apply for loans or grants I absolutely have to have one.

Unfortunately, while I’m fully aware of the importance of a business plan, writing the thing is a slow slog.  That’s either because I can't gather my thoughts or because I haven't done enough research.  One of the core parts of the business plan is to describe the target customers, the market potential, and costs estimates. 

I do have an idea of the market I’m targeting which is individuals and/or families with storage issues.  I want to create products for the home and my first product will specifically address an item that is important to people but used infrequently and therefore takes up valuable storage space for a significant part of the year.  By creating a product that still serves the intended function but has a significantly reduced storage footprint I can assist my customers in recovering valuable storage space.

I know that the ‘organizing’ industry is a multi-billion dollar market and spans the services of professional organizers to products that help DIY customers better organize their belongings.  But what I need to do is create a list of sources that confirm this and whose information I can summarize in my business plan to confirm my concepts market potential.  I can probably find statistics that show how many households would probably use my potential product in the U.S. as well as the home sizes in various locations.  I.e. where people live and how big their homes are.   I really need to find statistics that directly correlate home size with the households that are likeliest to use my product.

I also should include the statistics on the market for self-storage since my product would help decrease the amount my customers would need to pay for.  Self-storage is a huge and growing market in the U.S. and one my product would help households reduce the need for and therefore save money long-term.

I’ve done some research in the past on both the self-storage and organization markets so what I need to do for the next few days is redo the research so that it is current, summarize it, cite it, and write up some analysis of why this provides an opportunity for my product.  

See you tomorrow!

The Small Business Adminstration

I alluded to the Small Business Administration (SBA) when I talked about the Small Business Development Centers yesterday. While the SBDC provide information on the local and state level, the SBA provides small businesses with information on a more national level.  It's more impersonal that the SBDC but still provides a wealth of current information. You can get an idea of what I mean if you look at the list of forms offered on the SBA site.  Or use their Business Loans, Grants and Financing Results checklist in order to search for funding. 

In my case I can mark the following boxes; I'm looking for financing to start my business, I will eventually want to ship overseas, I'm a woman, I'm in a rural area, I plan to manufacture a product (but through existing manufacturers), and I live in Oregon.  At the bottom of my checklist there were 23 loan programs, 3 seed and venture capital programs, and 7 potential grants.  Although at closer examination many simply do not apply to my potential business.  Of the 7 potential grants, six don't apply..  The three seed and venture capital options do look interesting.  Of the 23 loan programs it's a real mixed bag, there's two that address the exporting I want to eventually do, 12 for mostly small loans, and one that I expect won't apply once I examine the requirements more closely.  So there are only 14 loan programs that might apply to my situation now and in the future.

In the workshop I attended at SBDC they mentioned a few local grants that might be more obtainable for me, simply because there will be less competition (there's only 64,000 people in our county).  Also, grants would be more advantageous because they don't have to be paid back, which certainly helps the bottom line for a new business. 

In any case I really need to work on my business plan because any application for funding is going to require that I have one.  The SBA provides brief information (there are entire books on how to write a business plan) on the essential parts of a good business plan.  SBDC offers support and mentors to help you write yours and since I'm already struggling with mine I'm going to have to call and ask for help soon.

Small Business Development Centers

SBDC's are located widely; in fact there is one in all 50 states (along with Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Territories.  They are a partnership between the Small Business Administration and local colleges and universities.  They provide mini-courses geared toward potential and current business owners, as well as a wealth of free information.  The one near me has a whole wall of business forms, brochures, and CDs, all of which can speed up the process of registering a business, setting up a business structure, and submitting for an employer id.  Just looking at the selection can open your eyes to issues you might need to address in forming your company.  If my little rural county has one it's pretty likely that yours will to.  The regional office for Oregon, where I live, has a website here.  The one located closest to me in North Bend has this website.  Notice that this local branch has their information on the college's website.  So it pays to check with your closest college to see if they host a SBDC.

They can provide assistance with "financial, marketing, production, organization, engineering and technical problems and feasibility studies."  All this is free and confidential, although they do have some low cost training available as well.

While you are starting a small business, or improving an existing one you are eligible to utilize SBDC, that is until you become too successful.  Once you are profitable enough to afford consultants you are out of luck.  So use them heavily at the beginning.  Free advice like this is priceless and can save you a lot of money down the road. 

I've taken their 2-hour workshop, Ready, Set, Start Your Business, and found it useful.  I'm hoping to eventually take their QuickBooks (accounting software for businesses) classes. 

Best advice ever?

So you have a dream? What's the best advice I could give for getting started? It's simple really. Go to your local public library and ask the reference librarian what material they have on small business startups. S/he can point you in the direction of books on small business, magazines they have on hand, web sites they may recommend, and vast databases of business journal articles they provide you access to.

Many libraries pay for access to hundreds of magazines, newspapers, and journals so that you aren't limited to the few subscriptions that are available locally. Many of these database include full-text articles (i.e. the entire article is provided instantly) going back to the 1970's.

What's more, if a book that sounds perfect isn't available in your area, you can ask your library to borrow it from another library for you.

So pick out a couple of interesting books, download a few business articles, and start reading.