Business Startup Ideas: Share and Share Alike

Keyword for this post: Business Startup Ideas

Bootlegging is IN, and as far as business startup ideas go, it is a pretty good one. Bootlegging means getting a little help from your friends, and picking yourself up by your own bootstraps. In the world of business it means the ability to use your network to do everything cheaper and better. And it means doing without some of the luxuries we might like to have.

Take space for example. Traditionally each business had its own "space", whether that space was office space or design space or retail space, or even manufacturing space. This isn't last year. This is the 21st century, and now space is dear, and space is a shared commodity.

Some businesses share space with their family. It is called a "work at home" business, and as business startup ideas go, it is one of the best. At least in terms of money. Low, low overhead makes for much better profit.

But there are businesses that need a more professional face. In the new world of business, these businesses often share space, whether that space is office space, retail, wholesale or manufacturing.

Rarely does a startup need all the space that is available. One of the major changes in recent years is the amount of sharing going on. A maternity store shares space with a baby store. A framer shares space with an artist. A parts manufacturer partitions off a third of his building for sub-let. A large biotech research firm sets aside one floor to subdivide for small biotech startups.

Getting a single office in a shared suite has long been a staple of small business. But now it is taken to a new level. Non-competing businesses can even share the same office, with the same fax machine, and perhaps even the same desk, especially if neither one uses the office all the time. Years ago when I was doing business consulting, I leased a single office in a law firm. Wow -- talk about prestige!

Having a good business startup idea isn't quite enough anymore. Now you need the ingenuity to stretch those startup dollars as far as possible, and sharing helps you do just that.