Location, Location, Location
Location can be important for startups — but not all startups. If your startup is an online business, you likely can save money by looking for cheap office space close to where you live.

Don’t Cause Downtime
The life of a startup is fragile to begin with. When moving, don’t neglect your daily business in the transition. If necessary, take it slowly.

Consider Renting Furniture
Buying office furniture can diminish startup funds quickly. Instead, consider renting furniture. The added bonus is that rented furniture can usually be delivered for free (or cheaply).

Shop Around
You know that house values are falling. However, did you know office space prices are dropping even more drastically? Do your homework and you may be able to find a great office suite for your startup business.

Image: Flickr

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Tips for Moving your Startup to an Office

Michael van Swaaij, the Chairman of Skype, and Paul Birch, the co-founder of Bebo, were the duo behind the funding of Crunch.co.uk.

Said van Swaaij: “The accounting industry is ripe for some disruption in order to make it more efficient, lower cost and less time consuming for freelancers. Freelancing is booming and here to stay as a form of employment, giving millions of people access to work and income otherwise out of their reaches.”

Especially for freelance in the UK, Crunch.co.uk is an exciting service. Freelances can manage accounts, expenses, invoicing and returns quite easily. Perhaps most importantly, accountants are only a phone call away!

Explained Birch: “I used to work as a freelance IT contractor with my own Limited company – I tried two accountancy firms, but both seemed to have weak processes and use Excel spreadsheets as the mainstay of my interaction with them. When I met Darren and discussed Crunch I was immediately excited about the opportunity to offer simple steps for people to follow and deliver a great accounting service for the lowest price in the market.”

Currently, Crunch.co.uk costs £59.50 per month.

Crunch (Image: Crunch.co.uk Screen Cap)

Post from: EveryJoe

Online Accounting Startup Gets Funding

Said Marco Zappacosta, the founder of Thumbtack.com: “Thumbtack is very proud to win the Juice Pitcher competition and formally announce the release of our alpha.”

Thumbtack.com is a free service that allows service providers a way to find clients. It also features the ability to manage clients. For example, a service prodiver could manage the payments and appointment of their new and current clients.

Bambi Francisco, the founder of Vator, Inc., was happy with the Juice Pitcher event.

Said Francisco: “The response to this competition was overwhelming. Our fresh and open approach to the startup competition format appears to have hit a sweet spot.”

The Gold Medal was handed out after more than 3,000 votes in this startup competition.

Thumbtack (Image: Thumbtack.com Screen Cap)

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Thumbtack.com Wins Startup Competition

Chocri Founders

With Chocri, customers can create their own chocolate bar. First they choose their chocolate base (white, milk or dark). Secondly, toppings are selected. Finally, customers pick a name for their chocolate bar and select the type of wrapper they want.

Said Franz Duge, Chocri’s co-founder: “Since chocri was launched, we always believed in developing a close relationship with our customers, who are the true creators of chocri; and so this award is not only a recognition of our hard work, but also the generous contribution of our early fans and supporters.”

Chocri plans to expand their services into the United States market. You can find more information on the company’s United States website at CreateMyChocolate.com.

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Chocri: Customized Chocolate Bar Startup

With the latest round of funding, Livebooking will look to expand and strengthen its position as the industry leader in Europe.

“Livebookings has grown aggressively since day one and we’re now at a point where we see a fantastic opportunity for further managed but rapid growth supported with further investment,” said Niklas Eklund, Livebookings’ CEO. “Despite the recession, recent figures show the number of new restaurants now using online reservations to fill their tables has risen by 91% this summer compared to last. However we estimate only 7% of restaurants currently use online reservations, showing us the enormous growth potential in our chosen market.”

Livebookings has already been ranked as one of Europe’s fastest growing companies in digital media and of the top tech companies in the UK. By using their service, customers can make restaurant reservations online.

(Image: Flickr)

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Livebookings Gets $16 Million in Fundin

How can you create quick customer service without spending a bundle? Here are some customer service tips and tricks:

Helpful Autoresponder
Don’t resort to using a cookie-cutter autoresponder. Instead, put together an autoresponder that is helpful and addresses real needs and wants.

Give options
Especially for new startups, you should be able to give a number of contact options. Outside of email, consider giving phone numbers, Twitter and Facebook pages, instant messenger usernames and message boards.

Outsource
If you can’t afford an in-house employee, consider outsourcing your customer service needs. You’d be surprised at the low prices you can find if you shop around.

Use a ticket system
Instead of relying only on email, invest in a ticket system. A ticket system allows for customers to check on the status of their question without having to worry about whether or not an email has been missed.

Customer Service (Image: Flickr)

Post from: EveryJoe

Quick Customers Service – Tips and Tricks

You can count Robert Proctor of Reality Digital as part of the latter group.

“Brands that utilize social media during the construction process of their websites will find it much easier to engage visitors,” stated Proctor. “The use of high quality features such as an online video platform, or even something simple like a website blog, will provide the domain with a great deal more personality, helping visitors feel at home on the website and certainly more interested.”

Along with video and blogs, other aspects of social media that startups are using are websites such as Twitter and Facebook. Proctor also brought up a valid reason for spending time promoting on social media that is oftentimes overlooked — backlinks.

Said Proctor: “In addition to integrated social media, any activity on mass social networks is also beneficial for marketing purposes, helping a startup to make themselves known on a wider scale, whilst also creating backlinks to their own content on their website.”

Although it is important not to waste too much time on social media, getting the word out and staying in communication with potential customers can’t hurt.

Social Media (Image: Flickr)

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Is Social Media Important for Startups?

At Goby.com, you need to answer three questions: what you want to do, where you want to do it and when you want to do it. After clicking the search button, your results will be shown.

Mark Watkins, Goby.com’s CEO, wants to make things simple.

Said Watkins: “Our mission at Goby is to allow users to spend less time searching and more time doing the things they want to do. Goby enables you to turn ordinary weekends or weeklong getaways into something memorable or extraordinary, by eliminating the need to hop around from site to site and wade through information that’s often incomplete or irrelevant.”

The results on the Goby.com search engine come complete with detailed information, photos and even an interactive map. It’ll be worth watching to see if this startup is a hit.

Goby (Image: Goby.com Screen Cap)

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Goby.com: Find Fun Things to Do

One of the main issues Vuclip has needed to tackle since the inception of the startup has been the fragmented mobile landscape. With so many different platforms and services, it is difficult to find a solution that satisfies everything. As the months go on, the mobile landscape gets more and more fragmented.

Said Nickhil Jakatdar, the CEO of Vuclip: “We’ve built a service that addresses browser and device fragmentation issues for mobile video so consumers can watch whatever video they want, when they want it, wherever they happen to be. Our solution gives media companies access to a global audience and allows them to mobilize online video assets, breaking out of the current paradigm where fragmentation and inter-operability issues limit mobile distribution.”

Industry experts are impressed with Vuclip’s ability to optimize online video in real time to virtually all types of mobile phones — and to do it for free. Vuclip is based in the Silicon Valley and has more than three dozen employees.

Vuclip (Image: Flickr)

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Vuclip Lands $6 Million in Funding

Mixing shopping with entertainment, Pricefalls has a “dutch auction” system that has prices continuously decreasing. It’s up to the shopper to buy the products at the right price.

Said Elliot Moskow, Pricefalls.com’s CEO: “With the economy still biting and the 2009 holiday season approaching quickly, many people will be turning to sites that list popular items at lower prices, like Pricefalls.com, to get the best deals.”

When the price is first announced, shoppers can purchase the product right away. The other option is to wait as the price drops. However, the shopper may lose out if the product sells out as the price is being lowered.

Pricefalls.com has a number products including electronics, toys, sporting goods and clothing. It’ll be interesting to track the activity on this reverse auction site in its early days.

Pricefalls (Image: Pricefalls.com screen cap)

Post from: EveryJoe

Pricefalls.com Launches – Reverse Auction