Starting up

Getting started
Work with a partner. Look at the information and discuss the following questions.

Businesses always have a number of costs when they start up. Some of the most obvious include:
• premises costs • insurance
• legal costs (e.g. for a partnership agreement) • staff costs
• utilities (e.g. electricity bilis) • advertising and stock
1 How can you keep each of these initial expenses low?
2 What are some possible ways of getting the money to start up a new business?
3 Which do you think are the most common ways to fund a new business in your country?

Compare your answers with another pair.

Business support
Listening
1 Complete the definitions (1-5) with the words and
phrases from the box.

1 If you obtain the money which you need to start

your business, then you r.~S.~H~~ for it.
2 If someone gives you the money for your business,
they or .
3 When someone lends you money, sometimes you
have to promise to give them something, like your
house, if you do not pay the money back. When
you do this, you .. .....
HHHH'

4 Something of value that you or your business

owns is ajan .
5 The movement of money coming into and going
out of a business is known as . Whi.cl1 tI1ree hncis of o..Glvic.ew..n fntreprenwr gÍNe.?

asset cashflow provide funding/capital ........

~qJ H'H2. . . 3.

Faisecapital secure a loan /Y\ost c.ommon w~ to ft,¡nci o.. ne.w b(,(sine.ss:

4.
2 037 Listen to an interview with Tara Ganesh, the Bo..nIcmAA~e.rs wAAt to see o.. 5 .. H •• H •• H.H •••••• H •• H ••• H...... •

marketing director of 'a business support service The bo..nlc wilL look for rwJi,stic wge.ts, s~
called Entrepreneur. How many ways to get rnoney growtl1 AAci o.. strong ~ .

for a new business does she mention? T!:lPe.s of o..sse.ts to g(,(o..rAAtee bo..nlc loAAS:
7 ..
H~.H.H.H.H.H.~~.H.~~ S.
3 1 3 Listen to the interview again and complete the A c.ompAA!:lwl1i.cl1 provi.<ie.s sto..rt;-(,(p mon~ is o..
notes. c.oJ.Led..o.. ~ . firm.
A o(,(sine.ss AAgeL ~s o.. 10 . . H ••••

Y0(,( w..n fLnci b(,(sine.ss AAgeLS tI1ro(,(gl1

11 . . .

94 Starting up
Teenage entrepreneurs 2. Work in pairs. Take it in turns to tell each other in
your own words about the entrepreneur you read
Reading about, using questions (1-5) to help you.
1 Work in pairs. Each of you is going to read an
article about a teenage entrepreneur who set up his Grarnrnar workshop
own business. One student reads Text A, and the
other Text B on page 120. First ski m your text, and Which/who/that/where c1auses
then look at questions ,(1-5) below and make notes 1 Study the information and answer the questions
on the answers. (1-5).
1 What difficulties did the entrepreneur face when
which/who/that/where clauses
he was a child?
The words in ltalics are relative pronouns. They are
2 What projects or activities was he involved in
used in place of he, she, it or they to join two sentences
before he set up the business?
together.
3 When did he get the idea for the business?
4 How did he raise the money to start up? Subject relative clauses
S How has the business grown? He was invited to attend the Chocolate Experience
show.
TEXTA
It was held in Mexico.
He was invited to attend the Chocolate Experience

Skydrop Enterprises show which/that was held in Mexico.

He borrowed $5,000 from a rich farmer. He lived
nearby.

J
oel Mwale was born in Kenya. His father died when he
~ was seven and his family moved into a house with no He borrowed $5,000 from a rich farmer who/that lived
electricity or running water. The water that people used nearby.
In his village was often polluted and many people caught
diseases from it. In 2007, Joel beca me ill from drinking
Object relative clauses
polluted water and was taken to hospital. From his hospital' The water was often impure. People used it in his
bed, he decided to create a new borehole* which could village.
provide the people in the village with clean water. He took . The water (which/that) people used in his village was
the money that he was planning to use for his high school
often impure.
fees and set up the borehole on some nearby farmland.
He sent some samples to a chocolate buyer. He
Over one hundred people came to collect water from it
each day and the rates of infection from thought he would be interested.
polluted water in the village dropped He sent some samples to a chocolate buyer (who/that)
dramatically. he thought might be interested.
But now Joel had no money to pay Relative clauses with 'where
his school fees. He needed to raise
He moved the chocolate-making operation into his •
money, and so he started to think
about using the rain as a source
parents' garage. There was more space there.
of drinking water he could sell. He moved the chocolate-making operation into his
This was the beginning of Joel's parénts' garage where there was more space.
business, Skydrop Enterprises. He
borrowed $5,000 from a rich farmer
who lived nearby and bought a water
·1 Which relative pronoun is used only for things?
purifier which could be used for rainwater. whial
The rainwater was then bottled and sold as drinking water. 2 Which relative pronoun is used only for people?
Joel admits he got the idea from other companies, like
Coca-Cola, who have done something similar.
3 Which relative pronoun is used only for places?
Skydrop Enterprises now sells thousands of bottles of water
each month and the profits have allowed him to pay school
4 When is it possible to leave out the relative
fees for himself and for his brothers, as well as feed his
pronoun? ..
family. He employs five full time workers at his production
plan! and the bottled water is sold as far away as Uganda. S Find another example of subject and object
relative clauses in the two texts.
* borehole: a deep hole made in order to get water out of
the ground

Startingup 95
 2 The following letter was written to the owner of a 4 The training is for members of staff work in the
cake shop which specialises in southern European customer services department.
products. Read the letter, and then rewrite the pairs S 1 am writing to complain about the service 1
of sentences in italics (1-5), joining them with a received.
relative pronoun. Do not use that. 6 There was a short delay occurred because of a
computer failure.

Dear Ms Tanzi, f) page 98 which, what and that

1 We are a new company. It specialises in the

Writing
production of Greek pastries. We are writing to ask
if you would be interested in stocking our products. Look back at the letter in Exercise 2. You are Ms Tanzi.
2 We were given your name by Ms Tina Furlan. We Write a letter of reply to Kostas and Alex. In your letter:
believe she is one of your regular customers. She
• thank them for their • suggest a time to meet
would be happy to recommend our products. 3 We letter • enquire about
endose a complete product list and three pastries. We discounts
• say why you are
hope you will enjoy them. interested
Our products are all based on authentic Greek Use the phrases in the box below to help you start your
recipes. 4 They are made from high quality sentences. Write 60-80 words.
ingredients. We import the ingredients from Greece.
S We began selling our products six months ago at a We would be very We would be very happy
local market. There, they proved to be very popular. interested in ... to discuss ...
Would you be free ... 1 would like to suggest ...
We would very much like to meet you to discuss
1 would also like to 1 also wonder if you could
our proposal further. We can be contacted on the
enquire ... offer ...
above number or by email.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely, Funding
kostas o..ncL Atex Ni.o..rd1os Reading

Company background
1 HW~.H.~~ ~H.I1~ ...ºº!YlP~!J..\'Jbi,c,l1..?p~s.~?H
.... .. Kalido is a company which provides software for data manage-
ment. It has offices in the USA, the UK and India. Its clients include
.iA:1...~.~ ...pr:o~<:-t4mgf.(;,r.~.HP~?t.r:~?:H .. Shell and Unilever.
2
3
1 Work in pairs. Read the first paragraph of the text
4
and discuss the question below.
S

3 e Business English students sometimes forget to

put relative pronouns in a sentence. In the following
sentences, insert the missing relative pronoun in
the correct place. TWO of the sentences are already
KALIDO
correct without the addition of a relative pronoun.
1 Many entrepreneurs find unusual ways to
whid1 finance their business if they cannot get help
1 We own a building to rent /\ is in a very from traditional sources. However,the initial
convenient location. funding of the software company, Kalido, must
2 This figure is a reduction in the amount was spent definitely be one of the most unusual, Andy
last year. Hayler, the founder, got his employer to provide
3 1 would like to demonstrate a new product we the capital for him.
have launched.

Why do you think an employer might do this?

96 Starting up
 2 Skim the rest of the article to find the paragraph 4 Skim the article again to see íf it contains any
that gives the reason. useful collocations and record them in your
notebook .

• Time and money

2 Kalido is the leading provider of data warehouse
software that allows organisations to understand Vocabulary
their business performance better. Unlike
traditional software packages, Kalido systems are 1 Many of the words we use to talk about money are
able to create reports on business information al so used to talk about time. Complete the gaps (1-4)
even if it comes in different formats. They also in the following text with a money word from the box.
allow data analysis to continue during periods
invest save 8fJeftéi waste
of organisational change such as relocation or
mergers.

3 Andy Hayler worked for Shell, the petroleum Having a great idea is not enough to start up a new
giant, in the UK. While he was there, he spotted business. You need to 1$pen~. a great deal of time
the need for a new data management package. on market research and deciding who your customers
Shell also realised that they needed a system that will be. Ooing this properly will 2 both time
and money later. The most important thing is often
could monitor the vast amounts of data from their
belief. You need to believe in your product enough to be
many different businesses, and so they agreed to
prepared to 3 'nn time, effort and, ves, your own
act as venture capitalists and invest in his idea. money in making it work.
For two years, they pumped money into Hayler's And if the idea is not a success? Oon't feel you have to
new software venture within Shell. 4.. . time and money on something of no
benefit. You may be able to go back to your original idea
4 Hayler had to identify a market to tap into and
later and change it or use parts of it for something else.
produce a detailed business plan, just as if he
was obtaining funding from anywhere else. The
main difference was in the amount of funding that 2 Look back at the text and underline the
Shell provided. The first funding to launch the prepositions used after the following verbs.
company was an astonishing $11 million.
1 spend 2 waste 3 invest
5 As a result, Kalido expanded very quickly indeed
compared with most new ventures. lust ayear 3 Verbs which usually describe water are also often
later, Kalido opened its first sales office in the used to talk about money or markets. Cashflow is
USA.Then two years after starting up, it broke an example of this. Look at paragraphs 3 and 4 of
its ti es with Shell. Kalido's software is now used the text and underline two more water verbs.
by many large organisations including Unilever,
Philips and Proctor and Gamble. 4 Complete the following sentences (1-4) with a water
verb from the box. Change the tense of the verb if
6 'Kalido was something of an unusual case in
necessary.
getting its initial funding from a large corporation,'
Hayler admits. 'However, what we did was dry up flood pumplpour tap into
concentrate on a real customer problem and
develop software directly to meet that need. Other 1 The company hasP()(.(re4/pl,Ar:op~ a lot of money
companies starting up could do the same thing.' into their South American venture.

• 2 The market has been

imported frorn the USA.
n

3 The advertising campaign was designed to

with products
•••••••••••

3 Look at the article again and match the

paragraphs (2-6) with the most suitable heading .............................
the new interest in healthy eating.
(a-f). There is one heading you do not need. 4 In the past there was government money available
but this source of funding has now. n.n.nn.n

Paragraph 2 ( a How the idea began

Paragraph 3 b It could happen again
Paragraph 4 e Who are Kalido?
Paragraph 5 d The road to independence
Paragraph 6 e New financial regulations
Presenting the case for funding

Starting up 97