Here is a quick round-up of (cheap/free) things I think every young crafter-turned-entrepreneur should have as they start to ramp up their business.

1. A Paypal Account – Free
If you can’t personally get one for whatever reason (age being one of the biggest factors) get access to one. Paypal is entrenched as one of the most common payment types.

2. Ownership of your domain name – Between $5-$10
Even if you’re not going to use it right away, it’s always good to own it first. With that said, if you’re doing some sales already, it may be worthwhile to splurge the extra 5-10 bucks per month for hosting and run your business from your own website. There’s a couple reasons for it, SEO (Search Engine Optimizaiton) being one of them – but that’s a post onto itself.

3. Gimp or Picasa - Free
If you’re selling crafts, you’re using pictures to sell your product (otherwise you’re not selling at all). Photo manipulation software is a must – you’ll probably be resizing, possibly adding watermarks and most absolutely be cropping. Picasa is more basic, where Gimp allows for more advanced manipulation.

4. Ownership of your name everywhere – Free
Here’s something that only requires some basic sweat equity. Register your business name everywhere. Youtube, Etsy, eBay, Twitter, Facebook and keep going as new technologies pop up. You don’t have to use it, but it’s always good to have it in case you do.

5. Open Office or Google Documents- Free
Not everyone has access to a basic suite of office software, and let’s face it Microsoft’s Office can be pretty pricey. You don’t need accounting software – a basic spreadsheet will cover your accounting needs for a good while, and you can create invoices in a word processor pretty easy. Open Office is great if you work from one particular computer, and Google is the choice if you use shared workstations to run your business.

6. Google Analytics – Free
By installing Analytics to your site, you get the best information about who is visiting your site, where they are coming from, what browser they are using and so forth. While there is a hard sell to buy Google Adwords (don’t!) the tool is free and quite worthwhile.

7. Membership within a crafting community – Free
Whether it’s on Instructables.com or your own niche web community (like my beloved Hair Extension Forum) being an active part of a community helps in a number of ways. First, it helps develop your own skills – the sharing of information is just priceless for a developing crafter. Second, it helps establish you as a knowledgeable source. Being an active part of a community helps establish your business’ brand, gives you fantastic contacts within that industry and give you a place to consult with great, knowledgeable people who will tell you what you need to hear, not just what you want to hear.

8. A feed to Seth Godin’s blog – Free
Most young entrepreneurs don’t know who the heck Seth Godin is – but every internet startup CEO, marketing guru and media consult does. And you should too. His blog posts are very short and to the point, but his message is always valuable. Don’t believe me? Watch his “This is Broken” video – I guarantee you’ll learn something about customer service.

9. A Content Management System (like Wordpress)- Free
This site is run on Wordpress. My 65 year old mother also runs a site on Wordpress. Back when I first started, my website was hand coded in Notepad. Updates were painful and slow. If you’re already running a site, try Wordpress out – you’ll be surprised how easy it is to install and use.

10. The War of Art by Steven Pressfield – $9.97 on Amazon
I changed the way I approached my business after reading this book. It’s short but very powerful – the message is that if we want to be serious about making art and making a living making art, we must become the Professional and goes point by point on how to do so.

Leave me a comment! Do you use any of the above? Is there anything you think I’m missing (10 is a really limiting number, and I honestly could have written about 100!) Let me know!

Next Tuesday: Why Youth is On Your Side – Part 1

*Note: All the links I have placed in this post are not affiliate links – I do not profit on any of them one iota. I simply recommend them because I think they’re all just fantastic and I personally support them.

Tags: accounts, community, domain, essential, paypal, reading, services, seth godin, war of art, wordpress

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 10th, 2009 at 11:18 am and is filed under Essentials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.