The Educated Kiwi
How to save money running a startup
This set of seventeen tips comes from Jason Calacanis. Interesting to look at the list and see what we could apply. I like the lunch idea.
I’ve got a bunch of tips on how to do this for business. Among them:
Buy Macintosh computers, save money on an IT department
Buy second monitors for everyone, they will save at least 30 minutes a day, which is 100 hours a year… which is at least $2,000 a year…. which is $6,000 over three years. A second monitor cost $300-500 depending on which one you get. That means you’re getting 10-20x return on your investment… and you’ve got a happy team member.
Buy everyone lunch four days a week and establish a no-meetings policy. Going out for food or ording in takes at least 20-60 minutes more than walking up to the buffet and eating. If you do meetings over lunch you also save that time. So, 30 minutes a day across say four days a week is two hours a week… which is 100 hours a year. You get the idea.
Buy cheap tables and expensive chairs. Tables are a complete rip off. We buy stainless steel restaurant tables that are $100 and $600 Areon chairs. Total cost per workstation? $700. Compare that to buying a $500-$1,500 cube/designer workstation. The chair is the only thing that matters… invest in it.
Don’t buy a phone system. No one will use it. No one at Mahalo has a desk phone except the admin folks. Everyone else is on IRC, chat, and their cell phone. Everyone has a cell phone, folks would rather get calls on it, and 99% of communication is NOT on the phone. Savings? At least $500 a year per person… 50 people over three years? $75-100k
Some of them are certainly not quite what I would want for my place of work but it’s interesting to see inside the mind of a fast paced business model. Now bring on my 24 inch iMac.
Tags: mahalojasoncalacanis
| Print article | This entry was posted by Richard van Dijk on March 10, 2008 at 9:01 pm, and is filed under websites. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
about 2 years ago
Think big my friend – 2 x 30″ cinema displays for me. Now I just need somewhere to put them.