[ubuntu-uk] Lack of support for small business

[Gareth France]

I fail to see a market for selling machines with no OS! That's far too
niche for my liking. The fact is you have to install something. And I've
been through all this with him and sent him scurrying back to his boss with
a corrected view of my proposal. Lol

On Sat, Nov 19, 2011 at 12:31 PM, Bruno Girin <brunogirin at gmail.com> wrote:

>  On 19/11/11 11:06, Gareth France wrote:
>
> I have an appointment with Lloyds next week. Bare in mind I'm not trying
> to sell the bank software, but they are getting cold feet about the idea of
> me selling a PC with software on.
>
>
> I understand that. I was only saying that in my experience banks have a
> very conservative attitude to software so from their point of view, you are
> setting up a business that consists in selling PCs with software on that
> they themselves would not buy so from their point of view, they may
> struggle to understand how you will make the business work because they
> struggle to understand who would buy what you have to sell. So it may be
> worth taking the time to write down a number of customer profiles to show
> them that you've actually done research on your target market and that
> there is demand for your product, even if the target market is not people
> like the bank manager you're talking to.
>
> Other things you may want to point out is that you are primarily selling
> PC hardware but your choice of OS and software you bundle it with means
> that you are not targeting the cut-throat mass-market that is already
> over-supplied and dominated by the Currys and Dixons but you are targeting
> a smaller (some would say niche) market that is currently under-supplied.
> And that's the point: your target market may be small but there is
> virtually no competition. And you know for a fact that there is a market
> out there: every single person on this mailing list is a potential customer
> to start with! Also, as a small business with no physical presence on the
> high street, you don't need to shift that many boxes to have a profitable
> business.
>
> You may also want to take the example of other niche suppliers like
> Tranquil PC [1] who are doing very well supplying PC hardware to a small
> market (their USP is low power hardware rather than the software it runs
> but the principle is the same).
>
> Banks are very good at using a risk based approach whenever they invest in
> anything (and even if you're not asking for a loan, opening an account for
> you is seen as an investment). So they will want to evaluate what is the
> likelihood that your business will be profitable or will go bust.
> Therefore, you have to demonstrate to them that:
>
>    - You have a product to sell,
>    - You have a target market to sell it to,
>    - Your target market is big enough (or under-served enough) that there
>    is room for your business,
>    - You can make enough of a profit on each sale to cover your outgoings
>    with some margin.
>
> The last point can be quite challenging: you don't want your prices to be
> too high otherwise customers won't buy but it needs to be high enough that
> you don't operate at a loss (i.e. if you need to work 18 hours a day, 7
> days a week to break even, you have a problem with your core business
> proposition). But I assume you're already looked at that if you've decided
> that it was worth your while to start your own business.
>
> [1] http://tranquilpc.co.uk/
>
> Cheers,
>
> Bruno
>
> --
> ubuntu-uk at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
>
>
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