What are some example business plans for the UK startup visa. I'm going to take
you through some examples step by step and look at how much each of them costs.
So let's make a start. By way of introduction, I'm Tom Bradford I'm a UK
based lawyer I'm a partner. Now top 50 your firm and I'd be delighted to help
you if you're considering this visa route I have a fixed price service that
covers everything and takes you right through to citizenship and helps you
make a success of your UK venture you can contact me for a free consultation
my whatsapp details are below you can message me on whatsapp or drop me an
email so the basic cost for the startup visa is fifty thousand pounds. Now the
reason I say that is that although the there is no minimum investment and it's
only the innovative visa that has the fifty thousand requirement one of the
easiest routes to settle in the UK is to invest fifty thousand pounds in your
business in your UK venture. Now that's not the only way to do it and
theoretically you could go through and not invest that sum but the practical
reality is you'll need to have a business plan that is financially viable
and for it to be financially viable you're going to have to have at least
that sum. Now I have heard some agents who've before I've had clients they've
gone to spoken with other agents and have been told that 25,000 or something
like that is enough I can't really see how any business that's innovative is
gonna cost twenty five thousand to implement I mean I I just don't see how
that can fly but I'd be happy to consider any ideas on on their merits I
mean let me take you through some examples. Now so these are all taken
these these extracts and quotes are taken from the JH media group in their
excellent article which I will link in the description and below so one of the
main areas that I've looked at with you before in this series of videos
is the SAS product so software-as-a-service
and the fact that you if you have a perhaps a traditional or sector business
such as manufacturing or trading how you may either already have the beginnings
of or can develop a software as a service tool or product which
supplements your existing business and brings it within the innovation criteria.
Now innovation basically refers to the innovation economy the idea needs to be
new but as I've said before in this series it that doesn't mean
unprecedented it could be a new take on an existing idea the innovation economy
broadly encompasses digital and technology it's not exclusively related
to that I have kinds in the creative and music sector who are using this this
this category because there's innovative aspects of their business and clearly
there's an overlap between creativity and innovation but what I'm specifically
going to look at here is what does it cost to implement a
software-as-a-service business for the purposes the startup
visa. Now the startup visa is geared towards people with the in Alec concept
stage so-called early-stage entrepreneurs that basically means
they're at concept stage your idea crunch stage if you like and are looking
looking at whether something is viable so I think all of this is relevant
because you've got to look at the costumes of the business in your
business pattern perhaps the most crucial part of it is the viability
assessment that primarily means financial viability so what they're
looking at and this goes for both the endorsing body and the home office upon
any you know genuineness review is what are you proposing to do and how much is
it going to cost to deliver that. Now as I said in yesterday's livestream there's
got to be there's gotta be two aspects of the business plan one is the the
problem that you've identified in the second is you know how you're going to
solve it but really it and on the solution side of that what is
it that you are actually going to develop and how much is it going to cost
I'm to deliver that so let's have a look at a SAS product as I say software as a
service product so so the article says our experience building software as a
service has revealed a few wide ranges for SAS development a soft a SAS tall
typically ends up somewhere in the 15 to 100k range with the majority falling
more towards the middle so that's kind of ideal for our purposes the purposes
of the 50000 root that's that's bang in the middle so 50,000 should on there
estimate be generally viable for developing a SAS tool but you've got to
carefully look at I know how you're going to go about investing that and of
course you've got to invest it in order to qualify for settlement unless you
fall under one of these other limbs like into job creation limbs which as I've
said in previous videos may be tricky to satisfy it's for SAS platforms there is
a larger range falling between 50,000 to 250,000 so this is referencing dollars
so you can decrease these numbers for four pounds of subject to exchange rates
again and platforms have more features more time and money in terms of planning
and develop and development and this is a crucial point when you're looking at
the Minimum Viable Product it's sometimes best to start with a tool
rather than with a platform the platforms on the whole is going to be a
collection of of SAS tools so the more specific you can make it and the more
niche the marketplace and the the better the end cost is largely developed
largely dependent on how many times you need to backtrack be sure to rethink
your functionality design or how the system will best suit your uses one of
the most costly mistakes we see unfortunately far too often is a client
who has already spent half of their budget or more I need to scrap the
original build due to poor planning and a discount development team so and I've
actually personally seen this with clients who have already made an
investment I you need to be I mean Boeing's touch base with me first
on the viability assessment in terms of the immigration rules but before you go
ahead or if you already have a tool in platform this isn't an issue but many
people are looking to either improve or optimize an existing platform or toolset
as part of their their business for the purposes of these the visas or if
they're looking to develop something completely afresh then it's best to have
a good team on board either you know the authors of these of this article as I
say or I actually work with a software development team that could assist you
or give you a quote so the next point is there's a loss of competition but also
lots of niches that are not filled yet but the sheer amount of money at play in
a market that's set to grow exponentially it's no wonder that many
forward-thinking businesses and entrepreneurs are working to create
sustainable SAS systems and this is really what the innovation economy is
all about and why the UK government with the startup visa and innovative visa is
looking to bring these sorts of businesses in it wants to target the
innovation economy rather than the traditional sectors such as
manufacturing or trading but SAS products are very much translatable into
the traditional industries and this this further quote demonstrates the point
says good news recent statistics show SAS trends looking great such systems
have taken over much of the online and b2b markets over the last 20 years in
fact 78% of organisations intend to run at least 80% on SAS by 2022 and the
overall market for cloud-based operations is already valued in hundreds
of billions divided between SAS I asked in other words information as a
service and others so that just demonstrates the opportunity in
traditional sectors businesses are transforming from there you know manual
ways of working to automated ways of working through such products. Now here
we are real world examples of SAS pricing models so what they say in this
article is that the lowest cost SAS product they've they've come out with as
a successful Minimum Viable Product cost fifteen thousand so it may be that that
the original outlay that you have to make is something in that region an
advanced form building and survey system for the niche market which took three
years and consisted of two to three-month phases with lots of testing
cost eighty five thousand which depending on the exchange rate is about
you know fifty thousand pounds a directory service with advanced
searching and an advanced admin area was fairly cheap at only thirty thousand
pounds the project involved manually mining data from the internet and
Campanas centralized database where it could be bundled and sold the service
utilized enhanced data entry features to ensure high levels of productivity from
the workers so that's that's another example I mean and that only cost thirty
thousand dollars so maybe twenty twenty-five thousand pounds at the
moment again an example of something that may be deliverable. Now of course in
all of these cases you have to see how this translates into your own experience
and expertise and the particular sector you are operating in or the particular
business that you're running in the next example a healthcare system
so I've got I've got at the moment three health care clients one of them is
is being an endorsed by one of the endorsing bodies if you want to touch
base with me about any health healthcare medtech type products please do be happy
to discuss them with you so this was a health care system more specifically a
health care practice management system which would interface with machines and
hospitals and this says it took a few years and five hundred thousand to
develop so some of my clients who I'm assisting come to me with a ready-made
business though which is in the innovation economy which they're
extending to the UK for a new UK entity in in in that case of course they're not
starting with a blank sheet of sheet of paper and they already have the the
business and it may be that the there's very little implementation cost because
the business is already up and running but what I want to look at and the
primary purpose of this video is you know what you should think about for the
initial outlay if you're building a product I'm under the startup and
innovative visas so the next one next point says lastly a complex SAS platform
that was conceived built and marketed by our team and the initial build was
between 35 and 40 thousand dollars and over 250,000 invested in us in the
software to date but the initial build was 35 to 40 thousand so I think what
all of these examples show is that if you're looking at you know 50 thousand
as your starting point then that is a budget that is realistic for delivering
a software-as-a-service or information to service and type product and in each
case your product is going to be unique it's got to be new that's a requirement
of of the visa new can be a new take on an existing product the business plan in
order to be viable will need to be costed and I hope these examples are
helpful in allowing you to do that so I think an essential thing to do perhaps
once you've touch base with me is to get a quote whether with the
partners i have or if you have your own contacts from them which gives the
costing of the of the build-out. Now I have another video which is about the
the secret to getting endorsed if you like what are those additional elements
that you ought to be thinking about when you're preparing your business plan I'm
going to link that in the information card I'm doing this as a live stream so
I'll put that up afterwards and on the end screen check out that video for the
additional factors you should be thinking about when you are preparing
your business plan for the startup visa or innovative visa I hope this was
helpful and I look forward to seeing you in the next video bye for now.