Power Bi for a small Business Model

[JP8991]

Hello,

I am thinking of setting up my own analytics business and doing some work on the side for small companies using Power Bi.

The idea being each company I do work for I would create a workspace which only they would be able to view. With each project I complete I would be aiming for it to be automatically refreshed and handled in the service leaving me more or less hands off.

In my friendship group I have a few people that already have small to medium business and I would start off doing some BA/Reporting work for them for free just to get an understanding of what is possible.

I would like to know;

• Is the above possible?
• What would be the ideal environment for my customers to be using regarding data storage?
  • LAN Storage/Cloud/Sharepoint?
• Whether my customers would need Gateways setup? I am guessing this would only be required if using LAN?
• Which subscription model I would need to make this work?
• Which subscription model my customers would need?

Any help would be great, thanks.

[Greg_Deckler]

With what you are describing you would need a Pro license for each customer unless you get a Premium instance, which is probably a little steep starting out. Ideally data would be in the cloud, then your customers wouldn't need gateways.

Good luck, a buddy of mine just sold his Power BI based business, Construction BI.

[JP8991]

Thanks so much @Greg_Deckler.

Yes, I would certainly only want to go Pro at this stage.

Just so I am clear:

• I would setup a Pro license for myself.
• Setup an Office 365 Premium Account with Sharepoint.
• Create a Workspace for each Client/Business.
• I am guessing this will create a Sharepoint Workspace too.
• Ensure they setup a Power BI Pro license.
• Grant each Client/Business access to their corresponding Workspace.
• All Databases/Excel files for each Client/Business stored in Sharepoint.

Thanks,

[JP8991]

Sorry, I still need some help with this one if anyone has anything they can add.

[Anonymous]

Hi

I realise that this is from a while ago - did you ever set us your SME Power BI consultancy? we are a software company that promotes the use of Power BI for some of the reporting against our CRM (we host on Azure and offer connections with tokens via OData. It would be useful to have a (paid) resource that we could offer to our customers for their Power Bi reporting requirements - can you contact me if you are interested in discussing this? Thanks

[JP8991]

@Anonymous 

Have sent you a message.

[parry2k]

@JP8991 good luck with your business. There are many questions but one thing you have to keep in mind licensing cost.

There are many ways you can achieve it, bit hard to explain but if you want , we can schedule a time to go over it and I can share some ideas.

[JP8991]

That would be great, I am more than happy to go through through it with you.

[parry2k]

@JP8991 shoot me an email, and we can schedule something. My email is in my signature. Good luck!!

[JP8991]

@parry2k  are you getting my emails?

[parry2k]

@JP8991 Hey sorry didn't see any email from you. May be somehow going into my spam. 

[JP8991]

@parry2k ahhh ok that is strange must have sent you at least 3. I am keen to discuss my options with you.

What is the best way to discuss?