I and some friends are setting up a business at school because of a competition across the UK. We for the moment sell flash drives but we don't have a website yet.. anyway thats besides the point - what tip do you have for setting up a successful business

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Well... I've only studied business at A level so this isnt concrete advice but here goes.... Firstly i would imagine you might need to specialize your product further.. Maybe have some flash drives with essential (and free) software installed like document editors or something that would be useful for your class mates to have. Then they have a reason to buy from you and not from the school supplies office or something, because you offer them something else that others dont. Keep some flash drives empty and sell them that way as some people only want the storage.

You could also offer free services like defragging of the drives but only on the ones bought from you, its unlikely they will need this service but its sort of like a bonus for them.

As for a website... definitely make one if you can do it free and easily, because i fear that as you are a starting business and you sell only one product, flash drives, people would be reluctant to purchase things online from you. I wouldnt buy anything from a small company on the net.

Remember to make or advertise your USP, Unique Selling Point, as this is what will tempt buyers to buy from you and not from the competition. you could offer bundles of products, maybe a flash drive, lanyard (the ribbon round your neck to hold it, assuming it doesnt come with one anyway), free software on disc or installed on request and a guarantee for a year or so against it breaking.

You need to be as unique as can be, and out of interest what is the name of this competition? I live in the UK and i havent heard of it but id be interested to see how people do. I assume its a school thing otherwise i might be interested myself!

 

 

 

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Well were expanding into other products as well the flash drive is just now... this only runs up till the endof the year but if were successful though were forced to close we ma re-open as an independent... of course that'll mean we'll have to pay additional cost the school is paying for but we'll see how it goes

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What else are you selling besides flash drives? As Shadow said, you could offer a free service. Another thing you could do is go around to computer stores and look at the prices there, and see if you are selling them for a good price. If they are selling the same one that yoy have, but for a lower price, you might want to look into changing your price.

ADS! When you do get a website, sign up for a Google Adwords account and put some ads up, and that will get you a lot of visitors to your website, and to your buisness.

I am not really good with buisnesses, but those are some of my tips!

Thanks,

Tim

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Hi All,
I was reading the replies and decided to add some of my ideas about making money in game industry.

First thing, the game industry in not very big as we think, but there are plenty of opportunities with many constrains. Well, lets talk about the constrains. All the popular games are written in VC++ using Microsoft DirectX components. If you look at the releases, Microsoft is releasing a new IDE almost every year, starting from VS6 - VS.Net 08 and the Microsoft VC++ supported by the IDEs is not always backward compatible and not open source. Side by side they have .Net 1.1 - .Net 3.0 including DirectX 7.X - 10.X.Its very difficult for the developers to learn and implement all the new technologies. If you want to open a Game Company you need to provide a lot of extra effort to train your developers.
The GDLC (Game development life cycle) is different than our normal SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle). It has divided into many import parts like 1. Story 2. Feature Creation (Artists) 3.AI 4.Game Engine 5. Core 3D Development(Graphics) 6. Network.
Your game might be a flop if any of these does not meet users expectation. I was quite a bit involved in Game Programming using DirectX 9.0c and I believe Game Programming is one of the toughest job in the programming world and you have to highly imaginative to please the gamers. If you have confident you can really do something great but its difficult to stay long in Game industry unless you have a high budget.

But, if you can do something that nobody has done before .. you have a great future.
Couple of games in mid 90's became very popular just for the innovative ideas .. like Prince of Persia, Doom, wolfenstein Snake etc

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Umm it doesn't look like he is setting up a game industry, but he is trying to sell USB drives. If he was setting up a game industry, though, he could use these very nice tips!

Tim

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If you're selling any device that stores files, it's illegal to sell them with anything on it unless it came with it from the manufacturer.

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Unless you have permission from the manufacturer. Then It will be okay, but make sure they approve first.

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Lol! no it isn't a game programming... I enjoy playing the games... I have had good ideas for games but not brilliant... anyway if anyone has any niches in the market they wish to share. nothing that plugs into mains mind Health/Safety will do there nut in. Also try to keep the ideas t the UK

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