What is the best software for efficiently managing an online AV rental company, including inventory, bookings, and scalable operations?

Great question, this is something that can be handled with a proper deal structure involving some vendor financing. I recently did a video about this very topic for one of my YouTube followers. Check it out here: https://youtu.be/hWm4ZQxWlEw You basically make the vendor's outstanding gift certificates a 'currency' which can be used by the buyer to repay the vendor loan. It's a net-sum game for the seller since he's already received the cash without having to provide the goods or services. Hope this helps. Feel free to schedule a call anytime you have a question about business transactions. David

I have to ask why you would start an agency in an area you don't have much experience in. Perhaps you'd be better off getting at least a little experience first?

Cash money should be treated separately than sweat equity. There are practical reasons for this namely that sweat equity should always be granted in conjunction with a vesting agreement (standard in tech is 4 year but in other sectors, 3 is often the standard) but that cash money should not be subjected to vesting. Typically, if you're at the idea stage, the valuation of the actual cash going in (again for software) is anywhere between $300,000 and $1m (pre-money). If you're operating in any other type of industry, valuations would be much lower at the earliest stage. The best way to calculate sweat equity (in my experience) is to use this calculator as a guide: http://foundrs.com/. If you message me privately (via Clarity) with some more info on what the business is, I can tell you whether I would be helpful to you in a call.

You're definitely going the wrong direction. That's my opinion. But I'm right, and here's why: Your domain strategy is hyper-extended. You've got 4 domains in .CO.UK – hopefully 8 counting .UK rights. That's all well and good for a British audience. But you deliver work online; so why not appeal to a global audience? Here in the USA, ccTLDs (a.k.a. country codes) are not recognized. Your business will look strange and be misremembered as .COM. That means your marketing will be inefficient; you'll leak traffic to Google, parked PPC pages, or even competitors who develop sites with the same brand name(s) in the same niche! Meanwhile you'll pay extra in ongoing advertising costs to compensate. And you don't own the 4 corresponding .COM domains. I checked. They're owned by a pair of people / companies – both known to me already. To acquire these 4 matching domains, you'd need to spend about $10,000. That's based on the typical list prices these guys set, which you can verify, I'm sure. On top of this, you'd face brand protection issues for at least 4 distinct names. That obligates you to further domain purchases or risks ... in proportion to the number of brand names you're attempting to operate. After all, WantApp is confusingly similar to WantApps; and WantWebsite resembles WantAWebsite. And let's not forget .DESIGN and .WEBSITE, which means your WantDesign.co.uk is competing against both WantDesign.com and Want.Design, while your WantWebsite.co.uk has to shout extra-loud to be heard above WantWebsite.com and Want.Website. Things get complicated fast! You'd eventually face competitors with these names unless you bought them all. You might even get embroiled in trademark disputes, which are no fun. For that amount of money ($10k upwards), you can buy a really great domain name and consolidate all your efforts on a single brand name with worldwide appeal and a single website. In the long run, going the way you're going, you will pay thousands of pounds one way or another. Maybe you won't buy those other domains, but you will put extra cash, sweat, and time into marketing. You'd probably lose a few customers over the years as well, since they'd go somewhere other than your site and find other people to hire. I also have concerns about branding with multiple domains, managing multiple websites, or asking customers to bounce around between several sites. But there's no space to go into that. The domain issues already sank your battleship, I'm afraid. If you'd like help selecting a single unified brand name for all your services – which is what I recommend – let's talk. Naming and domain procurement are both areas I specialize in.

After founding one company on my own, and co-founding several others with teams, I've written and spoken extensively on this topic - it's an under-recognized risk and challenge of entrepreneurship. You can read one of my more popular articles at http://lp.co/perspective, but I'll summarize it here... Entrepreneurship can be a very lonely endeavor. Even when you have others on your team, no one else is in quite the same "boat" that you are. Looking to other entrepreneurs for support can be deceptive. Most entrepreneurs are always "on" - showing only the best side of their business - and it's easy to understand why. As an entrepreneur, you're constantly selling yourself and your company to potential customers, employees, and investors. As a result, you compare yourself with others who are only showing their best side (and only sharing the good news), while you know that your own pursuit is a daily struggle. Raising money (if you are going that route) is an exercise in perpetual rejection. It's a real test of your self confidence to be told over and over why your idea won't work and isn't worth an investment. If you're not raising money, you may deal with this same challenge when trying to find your initial customers or employees. I've found three primary ways to counteract these forces and stabilize my own perspective: 1. Find some peer entrepreneurs with whom you can build some truly deep and transparent relationships, where the masks come off. Share your insecurities and vulnerabilities with them, and allow them to do the same. 2. Find mentors, advisors, and coaches who have experienced the same ups-and-downs you are facing. Listen to their stories, soak up their wisdom, and most of all, realize and remind yourself that they survived it, and so can you. 3. Recalibrate your perspective by taking time off to help others who are less fortunate than you are. Volunteer with an organization that supports a cause that you care about. The side effect of focusing on others is that you will be reminded that the challenges you are facing are not the worst problems in the world.