Blog

May 22, 2017

3 Things You Aren’t Doing Right When Raising Business Funds

Melbourne start-ups face many challenges but perhaps nothing else in this list is more daunting to most founders than raising money. But what can you do, you need funds when you’re starting a business and possibly more when looking to expand. Most of the time, using personal savings isn’t an option and you’d rather ask from lenders or investors than from family and friends. Money, after all, can be a sensitive issue and you want to avoid that in your circle. In raising business funding, making sacrifices isn’t unusual – and so is making mistakes. However, if you are not open to fine-tuning your strategy, you will just find yourself back in rejection zone. Below are five of the most […]

April 5, 2017

Recent Changes to Fringe Benefits Tax

Fringe Benefits Tax (FBT) is due at the end of March, but there have been some changes made to how it’s calculated this financial year. Here we take a look at what these changes are, and how they could affect you and your business. Who pays FBT? Your employer pays FBT on your behalf, if you receive fringe benefits as part of your employment. Fringe benefits are only judged to be reportable if they are not included in your salary payments and amount to over $2,000 for the financial year. Your reportable fringe benefits have to be shown on your annual payment summary. Fringe benefits of your job can include: Company car Health insurance premiums School fees or childcare costs […]

March 20, 2017

Five tips for business expansion

Expansion can mean different things to small businesses. For some it’s about opening more bricks and mortar stores, for others it might mean simply moving from a small office to a larger one, it could mean expanding into international markets, or even broadening your remit and adding online services to an already-established storefront. The question is: How do you know when – and if – it’s the right time to expand your business? If you consider the right timing, get your finances in place, research new markets and establish a customer-first culture you are on track to set your business up for expansion. It’s all about timing How do you know if it’s time to expand? For b.box for kids […]

March 6, 2017

3 Surprising Things About Australia’s Startup Scene

The Startup Muster 2016 report is full of stats on Australia’s startup scene, but which were the most surprising to its Chief Executive, Monica Wulff? Last week Startup Muster released the report, looking at the state of play in startup land. The comprehensive report is full of great stats and lovely infographics, but some of the findings took Wulff by surprise. Here are three of them. ‘I just had to do it’ There was an increase in the number of people who selected ‘I had no other option’ when asked why they had gotten into the startup game. While Wulff said she had yet to crunch the data, she had a suspicion that this response largely came from female founders. […]