If you’re just starting out your yearbook project, here are a few pointers you should conside:

Choose the right apps

The yearbook is easy to create – but only if you use the right tools. There are many different apps you could use including Adobe InDesign, Microsoft Publisher, Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Word, and Apple Pages. Because you’ll be working with large image files, it’s best to use a fast/powerful computer, using one of these programs which can handle large yearbook files.

If you’ve just started out creating your files and not entirely sure you’re doing the right thing, feel free to send the file to Rockstar to check – obligation free!

Use Online effectively

Where possible, collect information such as photos and reports online. It will save heaps of time. Rockstar can set up a free and private website for your project, where you can collect information from your community. Be in control, and chose the best photos and info to download into your yearbook application.

Online is great, but be careful with trying to do too much. Editing large images online is extremely frustrating and time-wasting. Anyone claiming to offer online publishing is kidding themselves, and offering something that is extremely limiting – you don’t have freedom about how you want your yearbook pages to look! It’s like trying to sketch a picture using a thick blunt permanent marker that is running out of ink!

Understand what a “page” is

When it comes time to getting a quotation for your project, it’s likely you’ll be asked how many pages you’ll require. A “page” is a single side of a piece of paper. Each page has one page number. A piece of paper has 2 pages on it – 1 on each side. So if you need 100 pages for your yearbook – you’ll have 50 pieces of paper bound together.

More random tips to come…!

So you have that special spark [part 1], and are trying to work out what type of business [part 2] you want to start…

Different types of businesses (continued)

1. Sell your time
2. Sell products you make
3. Sell products you don’t make, but value-add to

Category 1: If you’re passionate about doing a productive activity that you like, for example tutoring, gardening, being a make-up artist,then you are perhaps selling your time. When selling your time, you’ll have an opportunity to do for a living, what you love doing. It’s one of the best feelings in the world. The best analogy I can think of is that you’ll feel like you’re permanently on school or uni holidays forever.

If you’re a little more excited about the act of making money using a system of sourcing and selling things, then you fall into category 2 or 3. One could argue that entrepreneurship starts when you’re in business, not to sell your time.

Sell products you make

You could be quite creative, and on the side create handmade pieces of jewellery, crafts, or food. Selling your creations at markets, stores, online, or via resellers are examples of the business practice here.

Sell products you don’t make, but value add

Value adding is where you create a new product or service by joining together other smaller processes. You might start off with a bread-roll that you source from a baker, … buy a series of small paper-boxes from another supplier ,… insert the bread in the box, …and there you have it – your new product: Bread-in-a-Box! yeah!!

If you’re excited about getting into your own business because you have that spark, but not terribly creative to make your own products or sell your time, then perhaps the best way to get into business is to find ways in the market to value add. Create new products and services, that give value to your customers, by joining together other products and services that your customer would not have done otherwise.

For example: To start up fashion clothing line, you don’t necessarily have to be good with textiles. By value-adding, you can source the production of textiles from a supplier, do something really special or unique to it via another supplier, then sell the end product as your own.

A great beauty of value adding is that you’re not selling your time. You’re selling other people’s time and therefore not limited to your 24-hours in a day – only by how much your supplier(s) can handle. Your profit margin is made in the value of combining the once separate items into one new product or service.

In this series of blog posts on starting your own business, I’ve discovered that I’m really bad at focussed writing. Compared to writing essays, blog posts can be really brain-draining. (or maybe it’s just me). There are a lot of things I want to elaborate on however in future posts:

• cash-flow and start-up costs: is it really an issue, or are you just making excuses?
• tips on starting out: working from home, what to buy, what not to buy, working another pt job
• not obvious – but important stuff on dealing with people: suppliers, customers, employees