In today’s world, literally everyone who has an idea to make a business, is able to go on and see what he/she can do to make his dream come true.
It’s not necessary to have a college degree or lots of money in your bank account or being an expert to make your business, a new epiphany of a dream.
The most important step for doing such actions is to create a strong plan and handle it to the summit.
To know how to drive this process, we at startuplogy invite you to read this article to help you move on.
Think of a business idea
A business will happen with an idea, it’s pretty clear. If you already have a business idea and you’re sure about that, then you are eligible to pass to the next level. However, If you’re not sure about it or you need to find an idea, then it’s time to begin a brainstorm to see a good idea about your business.
Look around, are you thinking about to make a local business or borders are not limiting you? After choosing the landscape of your business, it’s time to ask yourself about the technologies or only anything which is developing in your landscape and think about how can you join the trade or make an edge for your business by doing something unique?
Maybe there are things around which are bothering you or people around you, and you think you may fix it. Problems are the roots of new innovations, yet in today’s world, innovations are much more frequent, and issues are harder to observe. It shouldn’t disappoint you, but it is actually helping you to create something much more unique.
Sometimes your idea is already available, don’t stop there, think about how you can improve it by making it cheaper, faster, and with higher quality.
Do Your Market Research
After taking the first step, you should research the market you’re gonna join in. Maybe you’re not the first one, so you can evaluate the market’s potential and the way it develops.
Maybe you’re really the first one in that niche, but you should search about why is that for? Perhaps the market you’re going to enter has not many demanding consumers.
You can even plan to conduct interviews or make polls, Asking people about their demands and wishes. For example, if you have a product idea which is already in the market, but you’re going to develop it to a higher level, you can ask people about the factors they mention while purchasing the item and even how would they like it to be for better performance.
According to entrepreneur.com, there are 3 mistakes which people commit while market researching: 1. Using only secondary search 2. Using only online resources. 3. Surveying only the people they know.
Evaluate yourself
This is a stage where you should match your abilities, will, talents and your expertise with the business you’re gonna jump in. It all depends on your vision on this matter. You may write your purposes honestly on paper to clearly see what you want from this move. Maybe you want more free time? Perhaps you want to use your brain instead of your physical abilities, maybe you want to create a team to improve the quality of life around you.
After these initial and fundamental terms, you should set your personal targets according to the resources you have.
Don’t forget, you have to be absolutely honest when answering yourself.
Plan Your Finances
Doesn’t matter if your planned business is small or big, you need money for your initial steps. Bring on a paper and write down all expenses you think will be added to your plan. Usually, a startup business plan requires some necessary one-time costs like licenses and permits, equipment, legal fees, insurance, branding, market research, inventory, trademarking, grand opening events, property leases, etc.
Next line belongs to costs you should pay in the first 12 months of your business. These costs are mostly required fees that you need to pay to keep your business alive. Things like: rent, utilities, marketing and advertising, production, supplies, travel expenses, employee salaries, your own salary, etc.
These are all foundational costs of your business.
Finance your business
All those expenses may come too much for you but don’t worry, there are dozens of ways to fund your idea and bringing it to life if you cannot afford all those expenses.
Sometimes it’s difficult to put a gap between your business and personal life, yet if you feel ok for that, you may ask your family or friends for a loan.
Online campaigns are another choice here, which is a way that most startups rely on to raise funds for their business. You would share your business goals and see how people would help it rise up. Crowdfunding is a perfect sample of people’s cooperation and showing the power of quantity in small investments.
Entrepreneur suggests taking a look at grants.gov, which is an online directory for over 1000 federal grant programs. It may take some time, yet it’s worth it since it is official and reliable.
Some other ways according to the entrepreneur are: asking for venture capital investors, Applying to local angel investor groups, Negotiating an advance from a strategic partner or customer, Seek a bank loan or line of credit, etc.
Find a location and choose a name
Your business needs a place, whether it will be a shop or a home office a private office, etc. your priorities will set that up.
You need to make sure that the location you’re going to choose will match your business needs. Consider who your client will be and how much your site location will matter for them. If you’re going to open a development office, for instance, you need to be in an area which is not near to the crowd.
Also, you need to mention the competition. Some businesses should not be near to their competitors while for some companies, it is a proper opportunity. It depends on your market research.
Other things you should mention about the place is the image and atmosphere of the area, rental prices and total costs of bills in that location, building’s infrastructures, ordinances, etc.
After choosing your place, you need to select a name for your business, which is very critical in terms of representing the company’s appearance.
After choosing the name you need to search about its availability, maybe that name is already acquired by another company. After that, you need to make your brand official.
Make it official
Making your brand, official is the way to make it uniquely yours, so no other company will use it or sue you for having the name.
While you’re making your brand official you need to consider things like your business structure ( being a partnership or corporation, LLC, etc.), registering your business, your business name, federal tax and state tax ID (for those who want to establish a U.S based company), Permits, Necessary bank account, licence, Trademarks, copyrights and or patents.
Promote Your Small Business
After doing all the stages above, you need to make the team for your business to be able to run things up, here is startuplogy’s article to guide you through that.
Once your company is ready to run, you need to begin attracting customers and clients. Don’t forget that your business’s future depends on its sales and revenue. With that to mention, you’ll need to read and research about sales strategies and share it with your team or recruit an experienced talent to handle this critical step. Of course, you need to earn that knowledge to be able to take control of this. No one is perfect.
Here are some of the primary sales strategies you’ll need to know:
Listening to your clients’ needs and see what they want, Ask for commitment but don’t exaggerate it, be ready to hear “No” from your customers, think about your profits as a priority.