OUGD602 - Start up Wednesdays

As Ben and I are hoping to kickstart WYS next year an independent studio, we decided to attend the short courses on starting a new business and developing ourselves after graduating university, we attended as many of the sessions we could as we found these useful as we had previously not thought about the business and money side of things as much. Below show the notes I made on each of the sessions attended.

Being self employed

must learn a bit about everything however sales and marketing are most important.

starting up

profit, income and expenses

Printers find it easier to get work as a LTD company

changingcourse.com

have multiple sources of income

spend 4 days a week doing boring freelance work

2 days a week building business

provide a platform to expand the business.

Tax free until you earn £11,500

tax return tells government how much money you make each year up to the 5th April.

Don't pay tax until 31st Jan

29% of profits in tax

every business has:

sales (eg. £20,000)

costs/ expenses/ purchases (5000)

profit (15,000)

Copyright Laws 

How to use copyright

Who owns copyright

Post-it trick - in order to prove that you were the creator of something you can post it to yourself to prove that you are the original creator (kept sealed)

How long does copyright last - 70 years

Copyright restrictions 

Creative Commons 

Public domain 

Moral rights - Paternity/integrity/privacy 

Marketing and PR 

Building marketing approach 

7p's of marketing (Product, price, place, promo, people, physical evidence and process) 

Understand your product - Who are your competitors and target audience

Setting objectives - What do we want to achieve

40% Marketing 50% Making 10% Admin (time) 

Features and benefits - Whats in it for the user

Pricing a service 

Measuring success 

Action Plan - Where do we want to be in 6/12/18 months 

Business Structure

Sole Trader - easy to set up (GOV.UK) easy to go bankrupt 

Limited (LTD) Company - Has a business structure and business is libable to invadiual

LLP Limited Liability Partnership 

Checking business names - Company House website  

TM - Free to use 

R - Registration fee

Keeping records (Tax, transactions, achieve value, ownership)

Managing Money 

Budgeting 

Costing and pricing as an artist

Cash flow 

Accounts 

Overheads - Fixed cost and variable costs

Research and Development 

Labour 

Time costing (what is my time worth) 

Targets (income)

Profit and loss