You’re a start up business and there’s no way around it—you need to dip a toe into big technology waters to check the temperature and get the tools on board to help you make a success of your new enterprise.
Keep in mind you need to be careful before you open the coffers to the likes of the big tech fish like analytics and cloud computing because these types of investments can quickly increase in scope and cost if not properly planned for. That’s where business loans can act like a raft to keep you afloat on these vast waters.
Here’s a few smart ways to carefully finance those tech purchases.
- Have A Budget. It’s important to look at any IT purchase from the total cost of ownership. That often includes various factors like updates, training, implementation and maintenance. Taking a look at the big picture here will help you narrow down some numbers and have the right perspective in the beginning.
- Take A Good Look At The ROI. It’s never a good idea to be making payments on the loan after the technology has become obsolete. For example, a lot of the computer hardware that you can buy today that’s not cloud-based only lasts up to a decade.
Finally, you’ll need to keep in mind that as a start up business, the type of technology that you are buying will affect the financing and the kind of business loan you’re looking for. Hardware purchases can often let you put up the technology itself as collateral. Remember, automating some important business functions can also help cash flow and keeping track of income, inventory and expenses this way streamlines any new start up business.
Of course not everything has changed about getting some money for technology purchases and you’ll still need to have your financial statements and credit score ready to go.