© jiangbabe


You've got your idea, you've checked the market, you're ready to embark on your own company. Now its all down to the money. In today's economy, that's particularly important.

If you don't want to lag behind your competition you need to take your new company's technology seriously. Here are few ideas to help you estimate what you'll need.

1. Put together a spreadsheet.
2. List everything you know you'll need. Don't forget the obvious things like laptops, phones, internet service and so on.
3. Make sure to also talk to other businesses, what did they not think of and later they realized they needed?
4. Add a certain amount of discretionary spending, just to cover Murphy's law.

If you don't want to do all the grunt work yourself you can always hire a business consultant or even ask an account to help you come up with an estimate. Remember though, you will probably have the most insight into exactly the kind of equipment you'll need. So if you go with an outside estimate be sure to work very closely with them.

If you want to really technical, it might be worth looking into a report from KEW Associates. Their report covers IT Expenditures for business from 60 different sectors with 9 organization sizes. Again, the best way to gauge your costs probably goes back to number three on our list: talk to other businesses. They'll tell you from experience what to expect.

Be sure to check out the Starting Costs calculator as well, to help you come up with that final number. Don't let the math scare you. IT offers lots of ways to help your business run more efficiently and that will save you more money in the end.

Do you have ideas on how to estimate or cut IT costs?