The StartUp Blog at PartnerUp

1. Recycled printer cartridges. Printer ink is insanely expensive. A low-cost solution to a new cartridge is a recycled cartridge.
2. Offer your expertise. Teaching a class, speaking at a conference or writing an article is a cheap and easy way to promote your business and position you as an expert.
3. Trade association benefits. Trade associations sometimes offer all kinds of cost-saving benefits, including competitive group insurance.
4. Alternatives to expensive software. One alternative is open-source software, a fraction of the price of commercial software. Also consider free software downloads on sites like Download.com.
5. Used office equipment. Computers, copiers, furniture, etc. can all be bought much cheaper used. Look at auctions, classifieds or used equipment stores.
6. Temporary employment. If your business has slow times of the year or busy times of the year, don’t pay full-time employees to sit idle during slow periods. Instead, consider temporary employees to step in during surges.
7. Interns, interns, interns. Many positions can be filled by low-cost (or free) college interns eager to gain experience.
8. Clean up your mailing list. The U.S. Postal Service will correct addresses, note incomplete addresses and add ZIP+4 numbers so you’re eligible for bar-code discounts…and they’ll do it for free!
9. Tax deductions for home businesses. Mortgages, rent and utilities can certainly be deducted from taxes when you have a home-based business. But so can maintenance expenses like house cleaning and lawn care.
10. Don’t ship it if you can pick it up. If you live or work near one of your suppliers, consider picking up your orders rather than having them shipped.
11. Learn new skills. Rather than paying a freelancer or consultant to do a recurring task for you, consider having them come in only once to teach you how to do it yourself in the future.
12. Barter. You can exchange all kinds of goods and services. Check out sites like Barter.net to find opportunities.
13. Go green. Energy-efficient technology and equipment is a huge money saver. There are also tax benefits to purchasing these technologies.
14. Shop around. Get as many quotes as possible to find the lowest price around. Once you find that price, quote it to vendors and suppliers you really like to see if they’ll match it.
15. Check out VoIP. For many small businesses, the VOIP phone service is a much cheaper alternative to those of traditional telecommunications companies.
16. Laptops over desktops. Laptops consume much less energy than standard desktop computers and they allow you to work remotely or while you travel.
17. Freelancers, consultants and contractors. Hiring freelancers, consultants and contractors can save you a lot of the overhead costs that comes from regular full-time employees.
18. The magic of YouTube. Rather than paying to advertise your business through a television commercial, create a video and post it on YouTube for free.
19. Online coupons and promos. The Internet is full of coupons and promotions for all kinds of products and services. You just have to be willing to look for them.
20. Use free forms. Don’t bother buying forms or spending time creating them yourself when you can find tons of them online for free. Just download, customize and print.

When the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was signed into law last February, the small business community saw an opportunity to capitalize on the many government contracts that were about to be doled out.

While the Recovery Act does not specify a goal for contracting with small businesses, guidelines request that federal agencies follow the overall goal that 23 percent of government contracting money goes to small businesses.

According to Joe Jordan, Associate Administrator for Government Contracting Business Development at the Small Business Administration, the federal government has exceeded this goal. As of Oct. 2, nearly 26 percent of stimulus contracting money—more than $4 billion—has been awarded to small businesses.

The Defense Department, which typically falls short in awarding contracts to small businesses, has awarded them a whopping 58 percent of its Recovery Act contracting budget.

Not all agencies are putting up promising numbers however. Only 6.7 percent of the contracting money being dispersed by the Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management has gone to small business.

Nonetheless, this is great news for small business. And for those businesses out there wishing they had gotten in on the action, there are still opportunities available. Just go to Recovery.gov to learn more.

The microlending site Kiva.org is known for helping entrepreneurs in developing countries get financing to start and run their small enterprises.

How it works is entrepreneurs-in-need create profiles of themselves and their struggling businesses. Then Internet users can choose to provide small loans of $25 or more to these entrepreneurs who are located in nearly 50 impoverished nations across the globe.

With the recent lending issues facing small businesses in the United States, San Francisco-based Kiva has decided to open its services to struggling entrepreneurs in its own backyard.

Premal Shah, president of Kiva, believes that small businesses are a real growth-driver for the U.S. economy and wants to help them.

“Even before the credit crunch, small business loans were hard,” Shah said in an interview with National Public Radio. “Post credit crunch it’s really, really hard. So, Kiva started thinking, ‘Wow, we’re allowing people in the developing world to request loans, why not un-crunch America and allow people here in the U.S. to request loans and see if the Internet community wants to fund them.’”

The thing to remember should you be interested in looking for financing through Kiva.org is that this is a microlending site, meaning if you need hundreds of thousands of dollars to turn your dream into reality, you’re not likely to receive that kind of funding. Kiva users typically ask for/receive between a few hundred dollars and several thousand.

When you’re presenting to a potential lender, presentation is key. A complete, aesthetically-appealing, well-organized package will stand out. This package should include a business plan, tax returns, financial statements, payables and receivables, cash flow statements and any other relevant documentation. Having everything the lender is looking for put together in an organized fashion lends you and your business credibility and will help you to appear sophisticated and trustworthy.

A few months back Small Business Trends posted on the death (or at least decline) of small community banks. It stated that between 1992 and 2008 the number of U.S. commercial banks with less than $100 million in assets drastically dropped from more than 8,000 to less than 3,000 banks of that size.

For small business owners this generally means a tougher time getting loans, as the development of personal relationships with local lending officers in small community banks allows them a better shot at not only receiving funding, but receiving it under favorable terms.

The post went on to say that this decline will undoubtedly continue and small and midsize banks may disappear sooner than we think. Kind of gloomy, wouldn’t you say?

Well, here’s a little glimmer of hope that I came across the other day. A new bank recently opened up in western Michigan called Grand River Bank. What’s so great about this bank? It was founded completely on the idea of serving the needs of emerging and existing small businesses.

It’s a little hard to imagine a bank opening up in this economy, let alone in Michigan, but I find it incredibly encouraging to see a small local bank that is not only opening its doors rather than closing them, but is also opening its doors specifically to help struggling and successful small business owners.

Only time will tell whether this model will gain momentum and spread, but if it at least helps boost the small business economy in western Michigan, then I give it two thumbs up.

If you have debt on credit cards with extremely high interest rates, try transferring it to cards with lower rates. This will drastically slow the growth of your debt.

You can also attempt to negotiate with your credit card company for a lower interest rate. They are typically resistant to negotiations, but if you explain that you are a good and loyal customer and that they are in jeopardy of losing your business, they may be more open to the idea.

The House Committee on Small Business passed a bill recently to reauthorize the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program to include friendlier terms, or at least friendlier than a version of this same bill currently moving through the Senate, according to many in the VC industry.

The SBIR program provides government funding for small businesses to explore their technological potential. The House bill is beneficial to venture-backed firms because the House will not be placing a cap on the amount of funding that can be allocated to them.

The Senate, however, is proposing a cap of 8 percent (18 percent for funding provided by the Department of Health and Human Services). The Senate argues that their version, which lengthens the reauthorization nine years longer than the House bill, would aid more small businesses in bootstrap mode.

The House bill will also increase the amount of funding that is available from $100,000 to $250,000 at the Phase One level and $750,000 to $2 million at the Phase Two level. They are also proposing to add $27.5 million to a Phase Three program focused on the commercialization of technology.

Venture capital firms remain weary of both bills for the way this program has traditionally excluded them. The Small Business Administration had interpreted the previous law to mean that startups that are majority-owned by venture firms must count the employees of the VC firm’s other companies as part of their employee count, resulting in many of these startups being judged as having more than the 500-employee maximum set by the program. Nonetheless, VCs are hopeful about the progress occurring through this bill.

The SBIR program is scheduled to expire at the end of this month, so movement through the rest of Congress should be quick.

Struggling small businesses may soon find relief from the Small Business Administration’s America’s Recovery Capital (ARC) loan program. The guidelines of the ARC loan program, which were released yesterday, state that eligible small businesses could receive up to $35,000 in debt relief beginning as early as June 15.

ARC loans, authorized as part of February’s stimulus bill, have a very specific set of rules governing who can receive them, what they can be used for and so on. Here is a basic outline.

Who’s eligible?

• Businesses that have been in operation at least two years.
• Businesses that have been profitable in at least one of the past two years.
• Must be able to prove financial hardship, as evidenced by declining sales, frozen credit lines, rising business costs, or difficulty making rent, payroll or loan payments.
• Must show you are running a “viable” business by providing cash-flow projections for at least the next two years.
• Must have “acceptable” business credit scores.
• Can’t be more than 60 days past due on any loan you’d like ARC loans to help cover.

How can the loan be used?

• Can’t be used to make payments on loans backed by the SBA before Feb. 17, 2009.
• Other types of business debt are fair game. This includes a commercial mortgage or lease, home equity loans used for business finance, bank loans made outside of the SBA, notes payable to suppliers, and credit card debt.
• ARC loans also cover personal credit cards if used for business expenses.
• ARC loans can be used on multiple types of debt.

How must the loan be repaid?

• Money from ARC loans can be used for up to six months, with no repayment due on the loan for another year.
• After that, you have five years to pay back the loan principal.
• The government covers interest payments.

How do you apply?

• SBA will make guarantees on loans rather than lending directly, so loans will need to come from participating banks.

The SBA projects approximately 10,000 small businesses will receive ARC loans between now and Sep. 30, 2009, when the program is scheduled to end. We hope that this initiative by the SBA will go far in aiding those small businesses whose troubles stem directly from our nation’s economic turbulence.