Information on starting a business in Atlanta (2009, unemployment rate)

[Uvie]

Hi Guys

I am new member on this forum (i'm from London, England) but have been reading the blogs for the past 6 months. I am planning to launch an online recruitment business in atlanta, following it's imminent launch in the UK.

I have had advice from American friends about whether Atlanta is the best/easiest place to launch a business, compared to other parts of the USA.

I would be grateful for some advice on the best way to perform marketing in Atlanta (the website will essentially be marketed towards jobseekers/passive jobseekers, and companies currently hiring). However, I am unsure as to whether or not Atlanta is the best starting place in the US. I was there in August, and I really love it there and want to move my family over in a year.

Many thanks

[lastminutemom]

You do realize that we have nearly 10 percent unemployment in GA. The first stage of the the economic recover is expected to be "jobless." There are cities in the US that aren't suffering quite as much. What would be your revenue stream? Given the plethora of online recruiting services that already exist, you will really need a niche.

Also, I am presuming you are a British citizen. Have you check immigration requirements?

[Uvie]

Hi lastminutemom

Yes I am aware of the rate of unemployment in GA at the moment. The unemployment rate here in the UK is about 7% and rising. You may find this surprising, but this is actually the perfect time to launch my website, as it essentially aims to create the world's largest candidate database. The money is made by charging companies a fee for sourcing candidates directly through the website. I don't want to give away too much at this stage, but I believe I have identified a significant niche, and in fact I am aiming to completely re-engineer the entire recruitment process, whilst in effect making people in the general public rich. In short, I will be providing very powerful incentives for people to participate in the growth of the website, by sharing out a significant portion of our revenues with them.

Even though there is a high unemployment rate at the moment, it's a myth that there is no recruitment. Companies always need to recruit, as people always move jobs for a variety of reasons. What I aim to do is utilise the opportunity available now, with such a large number of people currently unemployed, and get them to register on the website. This allows companies to make direct contact with them to offer employment, saving them significant time and money in placement fees. Our fees are significantly lower than traditional staffing companies, whilst offering a significantly better and more relevant service than all online job boards currently available.

I estimate that the economy both here in the UK and in the US will begin to turn within the next 6 months, and aim to position the website as a hotbed of candidates across a wide range of industries, and therefore will be well positioned to benefit from the expected uptick in recruitment when the economic climate improves.

I already have several large UK and US companies very interested in utilising our website, and am now looking to begin building up our candidate database to give these companies significant talent to choose from. Being based in London, I'm not sure of the best way to achieve this in the USA.

Regarding a visa, I need to wait about 12 months after launching in the UK before I can apply for my US visa. As long as I can prove that the business is commercially viable, I will be granted a 3 year visa, which can be extended for up to 7 years.

Many thanks

[straightfromatown]

Originally Posted by lastminutemom

You do realize that we have nearly 10 percent unemployment in GA.

Well the positive side to that is that he will be able to find plenty of employees who will work cheap. That is great when you are starting a business.

Uvie, I'm not sure why you have picked Atlanta, as it is not the easiest or most business friendly area. The best state will of course depend on your requirements, but most rankings don't even put Georgia in the top 20.

Tax-friendliness usually tops people's lists, and Georgia ranks near the middle:

The top 5 are Wyoming, South Dakota, Alaska, Florida, and Nevada.
The Tax Foundation - Study Reveals Which States Have Business-Friendly Tax Codes, Which Don't

Here is a list from earlier this year of the top 7. You will see that a few of the tax-friendly states appear again here, while Georgia is still absent.
The 7 Best States to Start a Business - US News and World Report

If you really love Georgia and want to live here, than go for it, but I don't think it is the best state for most businesses. Georgia has much higher taxes than some other states, and that can have a large impact on the success of a start-up. You have to ask yourself what you are getting in return for the extra money you will be forking over to the government here. Your business sounds like it is contained to the internet so I really don't see anything that Georgia would offer you over other states, yet it would cost you a lot more.

[Uvie]

straightfromatown

Many thanks for your comments and links. I have read them and found them very interesting. From a business perspective, it is clearly better to register the US branch of the website in a state that has much lower taxes than Georgia, and that is what i will do before I launch into the states. However, my reason for choosing Georgia is that I really love Atlanta, and most importantly, I feel that given the concentration of Fortune 500 companies in the city, I have good access to the key clients for the business. This, coupled with the high unemployment rate, plus the large numbers of higher education institutions in and around the city, provides for a fertile ground to be able to sign up lots of qualified and motivated candidates to the site, thereby being able to service the needs of the many businesses in the area.

Add to this the fact that I want to move my family over to Atlanta in the next 12 to 18 months (cheap high quality housing, good climate, good standard of living).

Another key consideration is that I want to initially attack the South East US market as my route into the wider American market, as I believe (perhaps somewhat naively) that this will be easier to achieve than either in New York or California. My plan is to establish the concept of my recruitment website in this region first, winning a few big clients in the process, then expand into the west coast and northern states once we have achieved good traction.

A somewhat long-winded and convoluted explanation, but I hope I have answered the questions and points you raised.