Optimizing expenditure on web-related services

The Internet is the cheapest place to put information and marketing materials about your products and services. Considering using the Internet, you'll save money and resources printing brochures, flyers, getting a space to display your wares or putting up banners in public places. And the basic function to do so is to put up a website.

For this article, we briefly examine a couple of hosting and email services which are FREE for users without much web based needs. What are the assumptions made?
1) you do not need a lot of space on the web: you only need a web space to display your products and services
2) you do not have secure transactions on the web: no monetary transaction is needed on your website
3) you have less than ten employees or if you do not need more than 10 email accounts for the business operations
4) you're just starting out and have a budget to meet.

Instead of doing a comparison of the endless web hosting services, we'll zoom into just weebly.com
Basically Weebly has a few plans (or tiers) of hosting packages available. What's attractive is its Free plan (which can be free for life). The downside is you'll have a weebly.com domain. But with the right SEO this shouldn't be an issue.

Superb Website Builders has done a pretty clear cut comparison of Weebly and a similar service provider, Squarespace. You can read more about it in the link below.
Comparison between Weebly and Squarespace

About emails, this article discusses about Zoho Mail. Their Free (and it's ad-free) plan covers 10 users and a reasonable amount of space.

Usually these hosting services cost between US$30 to US$60 per year, and you probably don't use more than a GB of space. The savings can be significant if you're starting out small!

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Getting ready for Google's change in search algorithm

It's official, Google has changed it's search algorithm again and websites will top Google search based on it's friendliness on the mobile platform. This is also why Business Trove is changing the webpage design.

So summary of tools which can help you.
 - Mobile Friendly Test
You can type your url into the web tool above to see if your website is friendly on the mobile platform, and make necessary changes to it.

 - Making your website mobile
If you're a blogger like us, you can check out the link above on how to convert your blog into a mobile friendly one without maintaining two sets of codes, or what is commonly called responsive websites.

These tools should have you get things moving!

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Entrepreneurship and being positive

I came across a Facebook post today and it's a collection of charts and graphics from Funders and Founders. Brings up my mood after looking at these charts.

Basically, you're not done until you give up. That's what entrepreneurship is about! #bePositive

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Banking Services for Start ups

Banking services is probably one of the most irritating essential services you need when starting up a business. Unless you're a freelancer, salesperson or simply an entrepreneur, you'll likely appreciate having a merchant front to account for your business spendings and avoid checks.

If you're on a low budget and do not require a lot of services, Pay pal probably works the best. However there are low cost/ free bank services for the entrepreneurs. Some are listed here.

Standard Chartered Business $aver Current Account
There isn't much written about this on the website, except that cheque books are free with this account. If it's the rest of the account fees are the same as the previous SME banking account product, then there shouldn't be any fall below fee charges. Still, best to call the bank up directly for a chit-chat session.

Since the interest rates are high, this account is probably the best if you have high liquidity.

DBS Entrepreneur's Account
Most of the fees are waived for six months, do note the minimum monthly average balance (MMAB) is S$10,000 for DBS's Business Account.

OCBC Business Banking
This account sells on the ease of transactions with customers, i.e. offers a variety of payment options for you to collect money from your customers. It's also clearer on its bank charges.

However, there is also a monthly account charge of S$35 and a fall below fee of S$35 (MMAB is S$5,000). If your business has constant cashflow this account is probably the best option.

Maybank FlexiBiz Account
No MMAB, and similar interest rates as Standard Charted Business $aver. Charges 50cents per cheque signed though.

Banks do change their policies and product features regularly. While we make the effort to keep the information up-to-date, please call the banks for a one-on-one discussion to see if they meet your needs!

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Crowdfunding in Singapore - Which Platform to go to?

Say for instance you've got a great idea but you do not have the capital to realise the idea. Bank loans are too risky for you, and your idea is relevant to the masses, the general public, and (of course) something that everyone needs. Crowdfunding seems to be the way to get the start up funds you need, and generate the publicity to get your customers before your product/ service comes out.

Many crowdfunding platforms have landed in Singapore and with so many choices on hand, we'll do a comparison of these platforms from an entrepreneur's point of view.

Pozible

Based in Sydney, Australia

Fees (only applicable on successful projects)
5%: total funds raised up to $100k
4%: total funds raised between $100k - $500k (or projects issued an invitation code)
3%: total funds raised of $500k or over
Merchant transaction fees, e.g. credit card, pay pal charges applies

Project Types
Pozible projects are typically art related projects, and project funding seldom exceeds S$10,000.

CoAssets

Claims to be the first southeast asian crowdfunding platform for real estate projects

Fees 
Fees are charged on a case-by-case basis.

Project Types (as quoted from CoAssets FAQs)
CoAssets is a targeted leads generation site, comparable to property listing portals. Such property listing portals do NOT sell properties. Instead, these portals allow property stakeholders (i.e. developers, agents, owners) (collectively, the OPs) to list available properties and real estate projects for interested investors to view. These property listing portals are not involved in any transactions between OPs and investors.

The types of projects listed by CoAssets are:

1. Bulk purchase – invest in multiple real estate units;
2. Crowdfunding – investors co-invest in units with others or peer-to-peer lending by investors to OPs; and
3. Pre-Sales – purchase of units before official launch.

Kickstarter

Kickstarter is perhaps the most well known crowdfunding platform in the market. They are very open with the success rates of their projects, which is almost 40%.

Fees
Processing fees are between 3% to 5% depending on the country which the project is hosted. Though they are not in Singapore, the fees for hosting projects in the US are listed here.

Project Types (inferred from Kickstarter website)
Film video projects are the most common (and also have the most number of unsuccessful funded projects), whereas Theatre and Dance projects have the highest project success rates, of more than 60%.

Indiegogo

Claims to be the largest crowdfunding engine in the market.

Fees
Depending on whether flexible funding or fixed funding options are chosen, the fees varies.
For Flexible Funding projects, you're charged 9% of pledged amounts if you do not reach your goal. For Fixed Funding projects, you'll not receive any funds if do not reach your goal.
For both options, a 4% of pledged amounts are charged when you reach your crowdfunding goal.

Project Types
Indiegogo has a wide variety of projects, and its focus seems to be for individual projects as half the projects they feature on the homepage are from individuals.

Crowdonomic

Claims to be the largest South East Asia crowdfunding platform. This platform clearly distinguishes between brand funding, equity funding and reward funding projects.

Fees
4% of funds raised plus merchant fees. Regardless of whether the project meets the goal, money is collected from the people when the pledge is made.

Project Types
About reward funding projects (which is the type for other crowdfunding platforms listed here), Crowdonomic has mainly creative and lifestyle projects.

Publishizer

Crowdfunding platform for authors and playwrights. Needless to say, the projects are for books.

Fees
For successful projects, 5% of funds raised and merchant fees are charged.

Haystakt

Claims to be the world’s first crowd-pricing platform and a marketplace for original, creative products. Haystakt is for projects turning creative ideas into material products.

Fees
5% for successful projects, and merchant fees are charged.

Hopefully this summary helps. As crowdfunding matures, there are other platforms which rises to meet your needs if you feel that your idea does not fit into any of the project types listed here. Google's your best friend and make full use of it!

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