So you have an awesome business idea, you are ambitious to get everybody in Australia, even all around the world to know it, and you hope to make money out of it, you may want to start a business. I have heard quite a few friends asking me, how to start a business in Australia? Especially during the pandemic period, is it even harder? Is it possible to do it all online?
Well, my answer is, it's definitely possible and actually not hard to do most of it online. At Aurora InnoLabs, we have helped startup companies to get successful at an initial stage by leveraging affordable, cutting-edge online technologies to spin up a proof of concept (PoC) of their ideas, or even just help out with their business websites and leave their hands for more important things like brainstorming of ideas, business plans, product implementation and so on. As founders of Aurora InnoLabs, we have been working with businesses at all scales and even incubated our own startups before.
There are some general principles for doing this, and the most important one is, believe yourself, you can do it, by starting small and keeping it lean. So here are some necessary steps for your reference:
Jot it down somewhere, do not let it be forgotten. Our memory does not work at all times, so it is always better to keep it somewhere persistent, like a paper notebook, a sticker on your laptop, or a memo app on your mobile phone.
Give it a name. I completely know how hard it is as a software engineer since we need to name things every day, but I still suggest to start thinking about it occasionally. It does not mean you need to think about it 24/7 and not to do anything else. To be honest, I sometimes come up with some good names when I sit on a toilet, or while waiting for a bus.
ABN, the Australian Business Number, is a number that uniquely identifies your business in Australia. You can start by clicking the link of Australia Government Business Registration Service, then click "Register your business". Once you complete the registration, you will receive a mail containing your ABN details. For more explanation of ABN, please access Register for an Australian business number (ABN).
Business Registration Service also provides thorough strategic guide to generally start a business, which is available at Guide to starting a business.
No matter your business activities are carried out online or offline, a business website is almost a de facto for your startup these days and you probably want to have one sooner than later. Just like your personal name card, the business website is more of your online "name card" for your startup. Usually when talking about websites and mobile applications, you may imagine quite a lot of absurd technology terminologies and feel it hard to get on. But with Aurora InnoLabs, you will find it not as complex as you have thought.
I'm not diving into too much detail here, but three essentials of getting a business website are:
Remember we suggest to come up with a good name for your startup right? Here you can use the name of your business to register a ".com" domain name. Here, the ".com" indicates you are using this domain name to carry out commercial activities. If you want to indicate that you are an Australian business, you can apply for a ".com.au" domain, of which the ".au" part indicates that your business operates primarily in Australia. Please note, in order to register a ".com.au" domain name, you have to complete the "Get an ABN" step above, since domain name service provider will ask for it upon registration. Once you have decided what domain name you are intended to register, register your domain name at CrazyDomains before anyone else comes up with the same good domain name. CrazyDomains offers significant discount upon domain name purchase, which can save some cost and get your budget really lean.
After registration of your domain name, you can also purchase a web host at CrazyDomains and connect it to your registered domain name. You can start pretty lean by purchasing a relatively small-sized web host with lower price, which includes the website space to host your website as well as business email accounts under your domain name and is pretty much enough at the beginning. You may want to secure your website by purchasing a SSL certificate as well. That will be really helpful when your business website is more than a static presentation of your business and you need customers to enter information on your website, since customers tend to give their information to you in an environment that is as secure as possible.
So you have got a domain name and a web host, all you need now is the one to design and build your website. That person can be yourself, but if you find it too painful or you think you have more important things to do, it's ideal to find someone who is professional at this. Aurora InnoLabs provides professional web design and development service. It is founded by a group of Sydney-based web designers and software engineers. We tailor the web experience with your idea, timeline and budget at hand taken into consideration. To know more about web design and mobile app development, let's have a chat.
If you want to have a physical location for your business, you may wish to get it listed on Google, the most popular search engine across the world. Google provides a service called "Google My Business" (now named "Google Business Profile Manager"). After filling out the information asked by Google, including the address you are listing, Google will send a "postcard" to your address, containing a verification code. Once you receive your Google "postcard", sign in to "Google My Business" and enter the verification code on your "postcard" to complete the address verification. More information of this verification can be viewed at How to verify your business on Google.
Anyway, it's already 21st century and most of the above steps can be done online, with the help from our designers and engineers at Aurora InnoLabs - a professional web design and mobile application development studio. You are pretty much in good hands to acquire a cost-effective business website for your startup, and get going!
To get the estimated price of your website, don't hesitate, get a quote now.
