Starting a Business For Dummies, 5th UK Edition

Introduction

If you pulled this book down from the shelf or had it passed to you by a friend or loved one as a gift, you don’t have to be psychic to know something about your current business situation. You may be in need of this book for any number of reasons:

• A relative, hopefully a distant and elderly one, has died and left you, rather than the government or a dogs’ home, a pile of dosh and you don’t fancy leaving it to your stockbroker to lose on your behalf.
• Your employer is in the middle of a major downsizing operation, not such an unusual event these days, as well as proposing to close its final salary pension scheme and relocate to somewhere with lousy schools and no healthcare facilities.
• You’ve a great idea for a world-beating product, bigger than Apple and Amazon combined, that no one has ever thought of but every one of the world’s billion-plus internet users desperately needs. When they hear the good news, they’re going to click a path to your website.
• Your brother, sister, father, mother or best friend – or worse still, all of them – has started his or her own business and retired to a chateau in France to breed horses, tend the vines and sail on a luxury yacht.
• You’ve heard that the World Bank’s Doing Business study has revealed that Britain is the best big country in Europe to start, grow and run a business. Fired up with enthusiasm, you’ve decided it’s now or never to get your business off the ground.

If your present situation is founded largely on luck and ...