Limiting Costs on a Startup with Little or No Money!

Plenty of people have been doing it for years. In fact if you look around you in many of the coffee shops in the city you will find many business people there. Conducting meetings. Responding to emails on their laptops. Working on their websites whilst sipping a filter coffee.

A friend of mine related how when he started his business, Cappuccino’s Midrand was his office. And whilst he was sitting there, he received a call telling him that a particular large organization had just accepted his tender for a R48 million contract and wanted him to come in and sign the paperwork. With data costs being expensive in South Africa, it becomes tricky to start up a new business on just R1000. Particularly if a large component of that business is online. Loading photo’s to a website uses a lot of data! So at some point you might find me and my Beautiful Bracelets at Cappuccino’s in Midrand. If you do, I would love to meet you and show you the bracelets in person. Don’t be shy!

Eunice, the friendly Manager at Midrand Cappuccino's

Cappuccino’s allows unlimited internet usage to their clients so for the purposes of this project I will see how long they allow me to be there on just 1 cup of filter coffee (R20 including tip). The staff there are warm, friendly and helpful. I am sure they know that they will eat the fruits of prosperity of all the businesses whose first official “office” is Cappuccino’s!