Talking in generics regarding survival in a recession is useless without some numbers to back it up. Seeing exactly how much you saved (NOT) doing this or that provides you with visible encouragement to continue your cost-cutting ways. Here, we have guest contributor, Roshni, founder of Singapore-based TheAsianParent.com, share some of the ways they have cut costs and their corresponding savings.
Written by: Roshni Mahtani, Founder and Editor, www.theasianparent.com
We’re just into March but it’s hard to enjoy the New Year with the devil of the recession staring at us.
Sales orders have slowed down to a trickle, early stage funding has suddenly dried up, costs are skyrocketing and the bills are piling up. Trying to keep a start-up afloat and without retrenching anyone can indeed be maddening, to say the least.
Does the above sound familiar? If so, we empathise with you because well, we’ve been there and done that. We know how hard it can be to keep up with the costs of everything today, even a simple thing such as a water dispenser.
If you’re in the red and struggling to slip into the black, well it’s possible! We’ve done it! Here are some of simple measures we took as we shifted into cost-cutting mode…
1. Give Up Office Space
The first thing we did was give up our office space and operate out of a home office. We hardly ever had clients come over and our mail was already directed to a virtual address business address, so there was really no point in burning extra money on office space. – Monthly Savings: $1,500
2. Go Open Source
The second thing we did was shift to open-source software. Our online forum is now powered by phpbb, which is free. We use Open Office instead of Microsoft Word for our new laptops, and instead of wasting hours of manpower coming up with new templates for invoices, contracts, etc, we make use of the free templates offered online by companies like Microsoft. – One Time Savings: $4,000. Monthly Savings: $100
3. Skype!
We switched to Skype instead of making IDD calls to our clients and staff in Hong Kong , Malaysia and Indonesia . We have also reduced our amount of fixed lines by just keeping two main lines, and having everyone else make calls out using Skype. – Monthly Savings: Between $100 – $150
4. Interns
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