Register a business (Ltd, LLC, etc), Open a Business Bank Account, Open a Business Merchant Account, Sign Up For A Payment Gateway...
Why do you need any of that to get started? You can trade as a sole trader, and use PayPal to take payments in the interim. Not ideal... but it does the job.
For merchant accounts, there are plenty of third parties that will do the job as well. Again, it's not ideal... but at least you get started.
* You just simply don’t see the level of entrepreneurs in the UK as you do the US in my experience and I feel that is not helped with the bureaucracies.*
And with only a £3100 ($5000) deposit.
I highlight these quotes to illustrate the fact that there's still a problem: what if you don't have a $5,000 deposit? At that point, whether it's $50,000 or $5,000, it doesn't matter: you still have to use some ingenuity to succeed. The same ingenuity to doing things in a less than ideal manner at first - but that can be "fixed" soon enough if you start to succeed.
Another point is you don't need a business bank account to be a sole trader. The business bank account has fees attached to it, which is why a bank wants you to use it rather than the free alternative.
This makes it ideal if you want to 'bootstrap' some ideas to see if they are worthy of pursuing - without the pressure of investors, business plans etc. You don't even have to register with the tax people until a few months into a business.
Oh, I agree. I was lucky to have $5,000. Compared to the $80,000 being asked it seemed like a godsend. But I think the entry point should be free so that it promotes startups. :)
Using Paypal to collect payments is probably the quickest way to get a startup up and running. Even for recurring payments paypal works quite well. In fact for users who already have a paypal account, signup would be easier than entering credit card details into a form you host.
Also I think there's a better chance your users will keep their credit card details up to date as they'll be using their Paypal account for other things. e.g. ebay.
Why do you need any of that to get started? You can trade as a sole trader, and use PayPal to take payments in the interim. Not ideal... but it does the job.
For merchant accounts, there are plenty of third parties that will do the job as well. Again, it's not ideal... but at least you get started.
* You just simply don’t see the level of entrepreneurs in the UK as you do the US in my experience and I feel that is not helped with the bureaucracies.*
And with only a £3100 ($5000) deposit.
I highlight these quotes to illustrate the fact that there's still a problem: what if you don't have a $5,000 deposit? At that point, whether it's $50,000 or $5,000, it doesn't matter: you still have to use some ingenuity to succeed. The same ingenuity to doing things in a less than ideal manner at first - but that can be "fixed" soon enough if you start to succeed.