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Check out the new website that everyone’s talking about (It’s our new website, and it’s mostly us talking about it)

June 30, 2023

Things that should be on your radar this month 👀

  1. In a rare piece of good news: There’s been a sharp drop in inflation thanks to falling fuel prices. With purse strings getting tighter thanks to rising interest rates, the prospect of another rate hike has been keeping many business owners up at night. We’ll soon find out whether this drop is enough to give the economy a bit of respite (and get business owners sleeping better).
  2. And if you’re one of those people who’s heard a lot about the impact of inflation but wish you knew more about the mechanics behind it, look no further than this excellent explainer from The Guardian. It’s a great overview of the current landscape and the various economic pressures that are making this period of inflation so hard to shake.
  3. Forbes has put together a list of three ways to grow your business in an environment with lower consumer spending – and we think they’re on the money.
  4. The realms of finance and AI are becoming increasingly intertwined as the world harnesses machine learning to automate and optimise business. This LinkedIn feed collating all the latest AI finance news is one to bookmark.
  5. With FY24 just around the corner, it’s worth checking out this list of 20 small business tax tips to make sure you’re reducing your tax burden as much as possible (while still staying compliant, of course).

The highs 📈  and lows 📉 of small business life

📈 Huge news: Project Alfred has a brand-spanking-new website. There’s been lots of hard work behind the scenes to get this project off the ground, and we’re thrilled with the result.

We’d like to give a huge shout out to our creative agencies, ONETOO and Slice, who’ve brought this website to life. We like to think that Project Alfred has a lot of personality, and both of these agencies have done a great job of making sure our new website reflects who we are.

Check out the website here and get in touch with your feedback – we’d love to hear it!

***

📉 One of the reasons we decided to launch a new website was a sour relationship with an agency that was maintaining our old one.

A mistake that we see businesses make over and over again is not understanding that business relationships are built on personal relationships. We started Project Alfred so that we had a space to prioritise the people behind businesses, and that ethos has turned out to be the secret sauce of our success so far.

A business relationship without any consistency or empathy just doesn’t cut it in our books, and it’s a sign for us to take our business elsewhere.

Tech that’s helped us build our new website

💻 Webflow: This website building and hosting platform (that we’ve just migrated to) has the depth to build exciting, dynamic websites while also being accessible enough for non-developers to jump in and make changes as needed. It’s an incredibly intuitive platform, and the free courses it offers with your account are fun and easy to follow.

📧 Drip: We’ve been using this email marketing platform for a while now, and it plugs into our website to make sure we never miss an enquiry.

📱 Zapier: If you’re not using this app, let this be your sign to make an account. It connects to nearly every app in your tech stack to automate almost any workflow. It’s even great for connecting two apps that otherwise wouldn’t integrate with each other – a must-have in any business owner's arsenal.

📊 Streamline: This Figma plugin made selecting, editing and placing the graphics we used across the website an absolute dream. It’s got a huge database of icons and illustrations, and it gives you the tools to edit colours, size and style to make sure they fit with your brand.

Productivity hack 👩 💻

I know we’ve spoken a lot about our website here (bear in mind it's consumed much of our brainpower for the better part of six months), but it’s worth mentioning the motivation behind building a new website despite having our old one for only 18 months.

We spent some serious time debating whether to invest in a new website so soon; but at the end of the day, our old one just didn’t have the functionality we needed.

Business owners would be very familiar with this concept. You invest in something, it doesn’t work, you tell yourself you’ll make do until you’re ready to invest in something else; the end. The problem is, the thing that isn’t working could prohibit you from bringing in the money you need to make that next investment (at least in the short term).

Our advice? If a system or tool isn’t working: Replace it.

The sting of having to invest your time or money a second time around is nowhere near as bad as the slow burn of having a broken cog in your machine. Plus, you’ll now be armed with an understanding of exactly what you’re looking for, which means the replacement tool will be exactly what you need.

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Project Alfred turns two this month! Last year, we raised some glasses with friends to celebrate everything we achieved over our first year in business. It’s interesting that while we’ve arguably achieved more this year, this anniversary has barely crossed our minds.

We’ve always made sure we take the time to celebrate small wins, but as the business grows our definition of a small win grows with it. It means achievements that used to warrant champagne on a Friday have become Wednesday morning high fives.

We’re ok with this – these successes have become the natural order of things, and that's great. But we’re trying to remind ourselves to celebrate those smaller day-to-day successes; it’s important to us that we’re taking the time to enjoy the process of building a business.

So, this end of financial year we’ll be taking the time to slow down and reflect on all the decisions that lead up to our triumphs this year, and we think you should, too. Pick apart the positives, and use the insights you gain to identify your strengths and opportunities.

Shifting your mindset to focus on your achievements, not your failures, is surely the perfect way to bring in the financial year. It just might be the reset you need!


That's just our two pennies' worth.

Liam and Amy, co-founders of Project Alfred

(changing the way people think about accounting)

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