Dragons den

[JPaul]

I ran my own business for 2.5/3 years, apparently I had circa £30k profit a year (police accountants), which isnt too bad for a part time/weekend effort

gigolo?

Part-time Police Accountant, the chap told you that.

[Robert00000]

But i still never say no to quality business advice from people who know what they are talking about. Unfortunately, Mr Jpaul isn't one of these people.

Absolutely spot on, I would never offer business advice to a cretin. It's a waste of my time and theirs.

The best bit of business advice I ever gave someone was to close the business down and to get full time employment as they were not suited to running their own small business.

Thankfully he took this advice and thanked me for it later. He, his wife and family were much happier and less stressed out. I think he probably knew deep down it was something he should do, he just needed it explained to him. I also managed to get him a shed load of money (which he was actually due) to pay off a lot of debts. Which was nice.

Didnt know you're a business advisor, thought you were just a manker clone out to cause irritation to the ambitious and successful.

Your comment above doesn't apply to me, my business had a turnover of just under £900,000 last year (about 80% of which was profit). This hasn't as yet made me into a millionaire (in cash terms) but i'm on the way there.

Its taken a great deal of hard work, but the efforts will hopefully pay off in a big way once i get the required VC investment.

I'm also seeking 2 welsh assembly grants (AIG & RSA) to help with the employment and training costs.

The margins of my business are relatively high and so will see competitors appearing in the near future. To be honest i'm looking forward to the planned IPO to give me the security i desire. The big flashy house and cars will have to wait till then.

[JPaul]

Absolutely spot on, I would never offer business advice to a cretin. It's a waste of my time and theirs.

The best bit of business advice I ever gave someone was to close the business down and to get full time employment as they were not suited to running their own small business.

Thankfully he took this advice and thanked me for it later. He, his wife and family were much happier and less stressed out. I think he probably knew deep down it was something he should do, he just needed it explained to him. I also managed to get him a shed load of money (which he was actually due) to pay off a lot of debts. Which was nice.

Didnt know you're a business advisor, thought you were just a manker clone out to cause irritation to the ambitious and successful.

Your comment above doesn't apply to me, my business had a turnover of just under £900,000 last year (about 80% of which was profit). This hasn't as yet made me into a millionaire (in cash terms) but i'm on the way there.

Its taken a great deal of hard work, but the efforts will hopefully pay off in a big way once i get the required VC investment.

I'm also seeking 2 welsh assembly grants (AIG & RSA) to help with the employment and training costs.

The margins of my business are relatively high and so will see competitors appearing in the near future. To be honest i'm looking forward to the planned IPO to give me the security i desire. The big flashy house and cars will have to wait till then.

Yet you are still a semi-literate letch who has not the slightest idea of how business works. What's the chances of that well.

Your business had a turnover of c£900,000 last year. You made a profit of £720,000. Which means costs of £180,000. Depending on what you do and how the costs break down you have a really nice mark up there.

Please enlighten me, what particular field are you working in. Oh, wait, you've been asked before and couldn't answer.

Quelle surprise.

[Robert00000]

Yet you are still a semi-literate letch who has not the slightest idea of how business works

If every business in the UK was run by "semi-literate letch's" like me it would be a richer place.

Please enlighten me, what particular field are you working in. Oh, wait, you've been asked before and couldn't answer.

You need to rephrase that as "didn't answer". There is good reason for that. All i will tell you is it involves oursourcing (the reason for the high margins) and european grants.

[Barbarossa]

Found it!

I'm actually still trying to make my first million, should get there in a few months time

Just in case you're wondering my company develops software (not POS/EPOS) for the restaurant and fast food sector. It's a completely new service and has great interest from clients.

At the moment i'm busy (when not posting here) creating a package for a chain of restaurants in cardiff.

We've signed up 16 clients already in my home town, each paying £500 ($900) for the system, and the chain of 9 restaurants in cardiff (each paying £450 = $810). So far we have over £12,000 of orders in the first two weeks of trading with very little effort.

Once we have tested out this new system we will launch nationwide, and then world wide. We are recruiting agents to sell our systems through out the country.

Its a revolutionary service we provide, so should take off very quickly . I'll be applying for some venture capital later this week to finance the expansion.

I also have another business ready to launch, but it will have to wait till i have more time.

So keep your fingers crossed that all goes well

So are you Nationwide yet? By my estimates, with a £900,000 turnover, selling systems at £500 a pop, you must have around 1800 "clients" by now... Why haven't we heard of you?

[DanB]

and how many agents do you have now?

[DarthInsinuate]

this time next year, we'll be mwillionaires

[Barbarossa]

this time next year, we'll be mwillionaires

Rodney you plonker!

[manker]

This is really funny.

£720k profit from a £900k turnover in a first year of trading. That doesn't happen, unless the accountant is an idiot. Imagine the tax bill

What's probably happened is that Rob the letch has added a zero onto his figures and is, in fact, talking about gross profit rather than net because he doesn't really understand the difference between the two. That would make a bit of sense and be realistic - particularly when he thinks oursourcing is a reasonable explanation for an 80% profit margin.

Outsourcing - Robert spelled it incorrectly - doesn't mean higher profit margins. It means that you buy finished products, or services, from other firms.

This usually means lower profit levels (particularly when talking about software because that mostly takes the EOS [economies of scale] factor out of the equation) than when you're able to produce products, or services, for yourself as you have to incorporate the supplier's profit margin into your own costs.

In this particular case, it seems that software is the only thing that can be outsourced. If you are unable to code software for your business and have to buy it in then it would DEFINITELY make your business less profitable. Your own time costs nowt.


Added to this is that Robert was working from his bedroom until late October last year. When he informed us that he had, at last, got an office and would be setting up his new business from there. As I recall it was some time before he could afford a broadband interweb connection.

I think it's really funny when people show off on the interweb - particularly when it's blatant pish.

[GepperRankins]

what does the company do again?