Top 5 for Resources

from picture div

Third Door

From VOIP to smart printing, Third Door has rooted cost-cutting technology at the heart of its business. Cloud-based services keep costs down while homemade IT systems managed in-house reduce outgoings.

Sophia & Matt

Sophie & Matt has a very lean buying strategy: every product sold is recorded enabling the founders to work out exactly what fabrics do well and in what styles. The compnay was launched with just £15 and the whole ecommerce platform has been built in-house.

Great Little Place Ltd

Great Little Place is a business entirely built on crowd-sourcing. It started life as a Facebook page, recently crowd-sourced £10,000 of funding to build a new website, and all the content writers are harvested from the crowd too.

Ella Riley Ltd

This British confectionary business recycles its sweet jars for distributing to wholesale clients. Old Lion’s midget gems/liquorice boxes are used for internet sales. And the business model is flexible: a store was recently closed to focus on building the wholesale business

skins4things

Skins4things manufactures skins for iPhones, games consoles and laptops. The business has achieved total automation of the e-commerce process. The business is hyper-lean - four employees generate a £250,000 turnover, no stock is held and everything is made bespoke

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

In this age of austerity, money is scarce. That hasn't stopped these smart businesses. These are the firms that begged and borrowed, scrimped and saved to launch and grow. Whether borrowing skills, laptops or office space from friends and family, using free marketing tools to the max, spending smart or going DIY to save the pennies, these firms are an inspiration to bootstrapped businesses everywhere.

Smarta top 5 for Resources is sponsored by