July 21, 2010 at 13:01Grant support for small businesses - myth or reality
The state is doing its best to support small business and entrepreneurship. Business incubators are being created, grant support is being established, etc. But as always, everything turns out through the ass. Here is my short story about how a novice entrepreneur (IT) tried to get a grant ...
It’s worth clarifying a little what grant support from the state is ... A grant is essentially a reimbursement of the actual costs incurred by an entrepreneur in starting up his business. Moreover, the costs are exclusively for equipment, rent, raw materials, etc. Also, the company must exist no more than a year. To receive a grant, it is necessary to collect all kinds of certificates and documents (extracts from the USRIP / Unified State Register of Legal Entities, a certificate of the presence of a personal register, etc.). And also provide a "business plan" (how much do you see in quotation marks below).
Now there are several key features that discriminate the very essence of grant support:
- Only those costs that were at the time of applying for the grant are reimbursed. Those. You cannot ask for money for running expenses.
- You can spend money only on equipment, rent, raw materials, etc. Salaries of employees cannot be covered by them. It's funny if you have the main expense (80% approximately) - this is just the salary.
- State applications adopts a structure called "Business Incubator".
- The same structure for a fee of 5000 rubles is taken to make a "business plan" for the grant.
- According to the assurance of the employees, a “business plan” can be done in 2-3 days .
In fact, a grant is not a grant at all. With it, organizations can only cover running costs, but creating a new one with this money is almost impossible. Amount by the way 300000r. Then why write a "business plan" in which to paint a product or service, competition, marketing, etc. If it is essentially not needed? Under such a policy, it would be easier to call this " Reimbursement of expenses of young entrepreneurs ." The nice girl involved in the development of business plans told that this usually happens: a company comes in, talks about its activities and a business plan is adapted to it. Moreover, there is a whole procedure for checking the "implementation" of a business plan. Why check if everything is already implemented!
Also for me, the problem was that the Business Incubator does not have a templatemy business. Bakery, hairdresser, beauty salon, etc. you are welcome. Change only the names and numbers. And here everything will probably have to be from scratch, which is more complicated.
Another important point - you can not spend money on salaries of employees. For example, I do not have raw materials, there is no expensive equipment and other things. The main resource is human. As a result, during my work since 2010, I did not manage to spend 300,000 rubles. to office, Internet, stationery and office equipment (the company is not from Moscow). To which I was asked to pay rent and the Internet by the end of the year in advance + update office furniture.
Perhaps I would have done so, would have paid everything I could before the end of the year, would have bought new office equipment and furniture ... but the expenses are paid upon delivery at the time of application, and there is no guarantee that my company will win the competition. And if not, then the money went into the pipe ... Not grant support for aspiring entrepreneurs, but stupid write-offs of expenses.
PS And all this is probably due to the fact that people who have worked all their lives, who are not aware of what entrepreneurship is in principle, are trying to help this entrepreneurship itself. New ideas, but the methods of work are the same.
In principle, there is nothing wrong with the proposed concept, since the money would go at all, it’s not clear where. For companies, cost recovery of 300t.r. a good opportunity, but then you need to review the entire procedure for obtaining a grant.
It’s worth clarifying a little what grant support from the state is ... A grant is essentially a reimbursement of the actual costs incurred by an entrepreneur in starting up his business. Moreover, the costs are exclusively for equipment, rent, raw materials, etc. Also, the company must exist no more than a year. To receive a grant, it is necessary to collect all kinds of certificates and documents (extracts from the USRIP / Unified State Register of Legal Entities, a certificate of the presence of a personal register, etc.). And also provide a "business plan" (how much do you see in quotation marks below).
Now there are several key features that discriminate the very essence of grant support:
- Only those costs that were at the time of applying for the grant are reimbursed. Those. You cannot ask for money for running expenses.
- You can spend money only on equipment, rent, raw materials, etc. Salaries of employees cannot be covered by them. It's funny if you have the main expense (80% approximately) - this is just the salary.
- State applications adopts a structure called "Business Incubator".
- The same structure for a fee of 5000 rubles is taken to make a "business plan" for the grant.
- According to the assurance of the employees, a “business plan” can be done in 2-3 days .
And in fact
In fact, a grant is not a grant at all. With it, organizations can only cover running costs, but creating a new one with this money is almost impossible. Amount by the way 300000r. Then why write a "business plan" in which to paint a product or service, competition, marketing, etc. If it is essentially not needed? Under such a policy, it would be easier to call this " Reimbursement of expenses of young entrepreneurs ." The nice girl involved in the development of business plans told that this usually happens: a company comes in, talks about its activities and a business plan is adapted to it. Moreover, there is a whole procedure for checking the "implementation" of a business plan. Why check if everything is already implemented!
Also for me, the problem was that the Business Incubator does not have a templatemy business. Bakery, hairdresser, beauty salon, etc. you are welcome. Change only the names and numbers. And here everything will probably have to be from scratch, which is more complicated.
Another important point - you can not spend money on salaries of employees. For example, I do not have raw materials, there is no expensive equipment and other things. The main resource is human. As a result, during my work since 2010, I did not manage to spend 300,000 rubles. to office, Internet, stationery and office equipment (the company is not from Moscow). To which I was asked to pay rent and the Internet by the end of the year in advance + update office furniture.
Total
Perhaps I would have done so, would have paid everything I could before the end of the year, would have bought new office equipment and furniture ... but the expenses are paid upon delivery at the time of application, and there is no guarantee that my company will win the competition. And if not, then the money went into the pipe ... Not grant support for aspiring entrepreneurs, but stupid write-offs of expenses.
PS And all this is probably due to the fact that people who have worked all their lives, who are not aware of what entrepreneurship is in principle, are trying to help this entrepreneurship itself. New ideas, but the methods of work are the same.
In principle, there is nothing wrong with the proposed concept, since the money would go at all, it’s not clear where. For companies, cost recovery of 300t.r. a good opportunity, but then you need to review the entire procedure for obtaining a grant.