NEIS (New Enterprise Incentive Scheme)

Monday was Stevie’s first day of school. Not just any school. NEIS. This is what we had planned to do back in the days when we were still having Tuesday meetings at the Order of Melbourne. NEIS is a short 6 -8 week program. I think it’s 6 weeks from what I remember. It’s basically for new businesses that are just starting that need a hand with business planning. To be able to be eligible for NEIS you need to be apart of Job Network and also not be earning a certain amount of money from other jobs. After the 6 weeks you need to be in full-time in your business. In our case as Mariana and I aren’t doing the NEIS program that doesn’t apply to us but it applies to Stevie. In short, Mariana and I want to be in full-time as well anyway. But for now, we don’t think it would be a wise move to give up our day jobs just yet until everything else starts to work. So far we haven’t had a meeting since Stevie began so we need to have one asap so we can start working on it together. I’m hoping to go into the office this weekend so I can at least ponder. We have a lot of work to do within the next several weeks. On top of that we have other smaller jobs that we have to do. It’s busy times ladies and gentlemen.

Filed under: Business planning, Business, Design, NEIS, New Enterprise Incentive Scheme, The Alpha Channel

Complete Colour Printing

So the Director of Complete Colour Printing came around to our office today to talk about the services they provide for their clients, the printing quality of the papers they source from their paper merchants, and the ink they use. Also to talk to us about sustainability and the move towards sustainable products Melbourne wants to head into in the future.

Thing is, although we are interested in the paper and ink and of course the effect on our land, we know that our clients may or may not want that particular type of printing. None the less, they offer percentages on how much recycled paper they use. The more higher the percentage the more expensive the cost is to print. Funny how that works out hey…

He let us look at some sample print stock they produced and the quality of printing. i have to admit it looked pretty. which is what we want. But we’ve decided to look into printing sustainable designs more. As this is what we want to be able to achieve with our business. We want to offer our clients sustainable options.

At the end of our discussion, he had mentioned to us the other services they want to be able to provide their clients in the future. There wasn’t much to be honest, but then again, I don’t really expect much more from a printer other than ink and paper. But he mentioned e-catalogues. so i don’t really understand what he was saying but, we’ll see…

At the very end of his talk, he offered us free business card printing to start us of. Thought that was really nice of him.

Filed under: Business planning, Graphic design, Print, Colour Printing, Sustainable design, The Alpha Channel

The Alpha Channel

I just want to congratulate Mariana for coming up with the alpha channel… this ladies and gentlemen, is our company name!!! YAY!!!! finally!!! The excruciating 2 months of trying to come up with a name that we all loved. and finally.. The Alpha Channel it is. First things first, I should really let you in on where and how this name came about.

Mariana was going through her Video production program Final Cut Studio, and there amongst the features and tools, was the alpha channel. Not only was it in Final Cut, but it was also in Photoshop and Illustrator. So she just picked it as a name.

The Alpha channel is what allows us designers to produce those levels of transparancy. Whether it is in video design or graphic and web design, the alpha channel can be used across all mediums.. a very handy tool, that by the way, I tend to use a lot. Also known as opacity.

The word Alpha is the first word of the Greek alphabet. It’s meaning is the first.

Another usage of Alpha is the alpha male and alpha female, meaning the highest ranking individuals in a community of social animals. Though this is usually used with referring to animals not humans.

But my favorite use of the word Alpha, which surprisingly didn’t show up in the wikipedia I just searched on google, is the Alpha and Omega. Referring to the first and last Jesus.

We’ve registered the business name which was $80 and also bought the domain www.thealphachannel.com aswell as www.thealphachannel.com.au

GO US!

Filed under: Business planning, Business name, Registering, The Alpha Channel

Sustainable design

Okay, here we are at sustainable design concepts. This seems to be where we want our business to head into. 2:30pm Tuesday 23rd June is our interview with Manager from the Complete colour printing company who will come and visit us to talk about how they’re printing company provides sustainable design options and what we can do as a company to help build a sustainable future for Australia. I’m hoping that he has some good information for us, so we can put some practices into our own business. Possibly save on electricity usage, water, types of ink, and of course paper.

So far we have included sustainability into part of our mission statement and have come up with several solutions and concepts to include in our business practices both for our company and also for our clients. It will give our clients some initiative into going more environmentally friendly. However, as much as we will push this concept of going greener, we also want to offer our clients the option of printing high quality designs on your usual paper stock. But at least for those who are more keen on going green we want to provide that option. I can’t wait to have this underway.

Filed under: Business planning, Graphic design, Sustainable design, The Alpha Channel

Running around town

The days are getting closer. It’s already the beginning of June and we have a NEIS interview next week so hopefully our business planning will be underway soon after. The NEIS (New enterprise incentive scheme) is a company that helps new business owners to develop a detailed business and feasibility study/plan before venturing into the business. At the moment only Stevie can do the NEIS program so we’ve been pretty busy working on the feasibility study. There’s so much to answer on our outline but we’re almost ready for next Tuesday.

Did I mention we have a new square table that cost us a total of $20 from Egans, a office furniture auction warehouse in the Western suburbs. So the table is sitting nicely in the middle of our office and the three of us share this one table. It’s almost like a communal table.

We drove around the city today visiting first ASIC on Collins St, Melbourne, then downstairs to FIDO so we can get our forms to register our company. We then walked to Elizabeth St, to pick up forms on registering a business name. Turns out we already had the documents. But we asked the guy if we could register a name that had ‘deregistered’ listed after it, and he said that we could. So here is a list of the things we need to do… I’m looking at the list on our blackboard…

1. Register ACN
2. Register ABN ? not sure if we need to do this aswell?
3. Register Business Name
4. Register Domain Name
5. Finish feasibility study
6. Finish partnership agreement for NEIS
7. Produce work for portfolio

Last week Mariana and I had several interviews to write into our feasibility document. She spoke to a video producer, graphic designer, and I think the other had to do with video production as well though I can’t really remember now. I had spoken to a lawyer, an accountant and superannuation officer, and also a finance officer. So our questionnares have been included into our feasibility study.B

Filed under: Business planning, Office, ASIC, Business planning, Egans furniture, Feasibility Study, FIDO, Questionnaires, The Alpha Channel

Lighting

So here we are, the new and improved and cheap lighting fixtures Stevie hammered together from pieces of wood from Bunnings. Sits quite nicely on the fluro lights and it dimms it down a little so it’s not such a glare. We’ve also just finished the second coat on our blackboard wall so it should be ready to chalk by tomorrow. Unfortuneatly I have work at my other web design job so I can’t be there to witness the writing… However I may pop in later in the evening. Talk about bargain it cost us around $40 for the three lights to be covered with this wood. Awesomely, the art studio’s that we are located in have their own tool shed which is right next to our office.. Keep in tune coz I’ll be posting our new used table that we bought for a bargain price of $20!!!! Thick solid wood aswell..

Filed under: Office, Business, Do-it-yourself, Lighting, Office, The Alpha Channel

Company set-up conundrums

I don’t even know if conundrum is a real word, but I think I may have picked it up from somewhere… Anyway, starting a company I just realised is a hassle. A hassle I’m prepared to go through though We are having a lot of difficulty coming up with a business name, and a business name that is also available. The good ones we’ve thought of are all taken. Basically we want something positive, creative, and different. Something that stands out, memorable, and delicious. But it’s just soo harrdddd… I’ve never had to use my mind so much on a name. lol. Apparantly it can’t even sound close to or similar to an existing business.

I’ve also been speaking to my friend Mish who is a tax advisor, so she’s just managed to explain to me how company tax works, and how to work it out. Basically, every quarter we make tax payments to the Government. But before we do that, we have to work out an estimate of how much we think we will earn for the year. Once the Tax office approves the estimate, they decide how much tax we will have to pay. Then they send us those notices every quarter telling us we have to pay up. Then at the end of the financial year, when we send of our business activity statement and what we actually earned, they refund any extra that we paid in advance.

Filed under: Business planning, Business name, Tax advisor, The Alpha Channel

Blackboard paint

I’ve posted images of our new office. Too excited about it. That’s the roller door that we normally open a little bit just to let fresh air come through. And thats our little egg window. And thats Mariana and Steven painting our new blackboard that we bought yesterday, and I inhaled a little too much fume and now I’m home with a big massive headache. Not good. It’s fried my brain a little.

We have our first client as well. Even though we still haven’t finished or started our business plan, next Tuesday is our meeting. Hope all goes down well. It’s a big massive office furniture warehouse that auction said furniture at bargain prices. No joke, the other day we went there to look for a table or office chairs, and some guy bought a massive directors meeting table for $60. Pretty good if you ask me.

Filed under: Office, Blackboard paint, Business, new office, The Alpha Channel

Wakey Wakey

I’m feeling very awake, much better than yesterday. But I slept in til 9:45am this morning. I was that tired. Usually I’m awake at 7am. Then again, Alwin called me twice this morning while I was still enjoying my sleep. He was all peppy and alive and decided to be a motivational speaker for the day. I fired him and went back to sleep.

So now I’m sitting here with a chai tea hoping that today is going to be a good day. I’ve already made rent payments for the new office. Yesterday I wrote that Alwin and I were walking around the city. While on that journey I picked up some handy references for illustrators and designers, and also the designvic.com brochure from the AGIdeas stand, which I’m going to include in the feasibility study for the business. I should go put milk in my chai.

Also, as I didn’t end up at the business meeting yesterday, eep, I’m rocking up today and hoping to get some kind of work done. We got the carpet layed down, so I’ll take a photo of that also. Right now I’m charging the camera battery.

Got a few things I want to bring up with Mariana and Steven my business buddies. I’d like to bring up our working schedule, our price lists, our jobs, furniture, in particular shelving, tables, seats. I’d like to tell them that the deposit has been paid. I also want to bring up the feasibility study that I’ve prepared. I’ve spent the last week setting the layout for the study so we can start working on it. It’s looking pretty shnazzy at the moment.

Oh i also owe money to Mariana for getting keys cut for me to enter the office. And also for the carpet. We ended up with carpet that cost 90bucks. Pretty cheap. and theres still heaps left over that we’re trying to sell. So I owe a total of $41.60 as we split everything by 3 people.

Anyway, I’m gona scoff the rest of this tea down nad head out. I’ll be posting later…

Filed under: Business planning, Random, AGIdeas, Awake, Business, Chai tea, Design Victoria, Feasibility Study, Office keys

Not an intro and not an end

I’m really sleepy as I’ve been walking around the city all day with a pair of boots that were definately not made for walking. The highlight of my day was sipping on some beef and veggie soup down one of the alleys in Melbourne. The lowlight of my day was the drive home during peak hour feeling extremely sleepy. But now I’m listening to a youtube video about designing a sustainable future with a guy named Professor Chris Ryan, see below. I honestly don’t think it was a wise move on my part to listen to this man speak while I’m sitting here half awake, however it applies to my future plans so I’m forcing myself to listen to the whole 9:18 minutes, eh. Oh on the plus side, I listed down my inventions in my red excerise book. So far I’ve got about 10 or so ideas. Am I an inventor? No. But coming up with new creations is my new hobbie.

When I checked my phone for the first time this morning I noticed I had no calls or messages. Not surprising though, but then for some weird reason I would have my friend call and hang up after one second, and I had a call from some random number I didn’t know so I didn’t pick up. But I just remembered right now that I forgot I made plans to see a lady about a studio space today. uh oh spaghetti oh. I should call her. If I had credit. Tomorrow. I’ll call her tomorrow.

My vow of not eating any more chocolate has been broken. I realise now how hard it is for people to quit smoking. Chocolate is so hard to give up. I just had a milk chocolate drink from San Churros. It was good to my tastebuds. But now I’m left a bit lactose intolerant. I’m going to give it up. Starting from now.

Here’s just a random idea: I wouldn’t mind having a pet sheep. It could eat the lawn. And I could hug it when it gets wooly. Better yet, Alwin was walking around the city with me today wearing thongs or jandles as they call them in New Zealand, and it was a pretty cold day so he was freezing his toes off, so I figure a good pair of mocathongs would be good for him. Woolen thongs.

oh by the way… we’re starting a new design company.

Filed under: Random, Design, Professor Chris Ryan, Random