TIPS ON HOW TO START YOUR OWN BUSINESS

 For those of you who have not already started a business, or are trying to figure out how best to start your business, this post will help you learn the 8 key steps of the process.

·                  1. DETERMINE IDEA

You can’t start a business without a good idea. Your idea needs to build a real-world solution to a real-world problem, preferably in a sizable market.

 

Photo credit: Wikipedia)

And, in all cases, do what you love, as it is important you have a passion about your startup, to get through the good times and the bad.

·                

  2. SET EXIT EXPECTATIONS

You need to decide if you are building this business as a lifestyle business for yourself, as the sole owner, or if you are trying to attract outside capital. Because the things you would do for yourself, may be different than the things you would do for outside capital. Outside investors will most-likely require much faster growth and a clear roadmap to exit for their investment after around five years. Whereas, you may be personally fine building a small revenue business that covers your desired lifestyle, without the hassle of outside investors.

·               

   3. RESEARCH YOUR MARKET

Before you get started, you need to do some preliminary market research for your startup. How large is your market? How competitive is your industry? How well funded are your competitors? Is it a market that will appeal to venture capitalists? You want to make sure you know what you are getting yourself into before you start. You are practically trying to kill your startup before you start, and if you can’t find a good reason to kill it, you are off to the races.

·                  4. BUSINESS PLANNING

Once you have finished your market research, you need to build a a business plan, determine your revenue model, build a sales and marketing plan and build a budget for your business. Where you can, bias businesses with a recurring revenue model, to better leverage your upfront sales and marketing investment. In addition to budgeting for the development of your product or service, make sure you leave enough budget to test your sales and marketing efforts and acheive a profitable cost of customer acquisition and proof of concept that will appeal to future investors. In all cases, set reasonable milestones to shoot for along the way.

·                  5. BUSINESS FORMATION

Once you are sure you have a good and well-researched idea and business/financial model that makes sense, you should be in a position to launch your business. This includes answering frequent legal questions of startups (e.g., determining corporate structure, intellectual property protection, state of formation). And, it includes the basics of setting up your bank accounts, accounting policies and process, employee handbook policies and insurance protection. You also need to decide where best to locate your startup and how best to set up your board of directors and advisors. A good startup lawyer will be critical here.

·                  6. PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Now, you need to build the actual product or service you plan on taking to market. That always starts with a good product and pricing strategy. And, where you can, “productize” your business for maximum efficiency and scalability. In building your product or service, you will need to decide if better to build your startup with in-house employees or third-party contractors. In all cases, you will want to build a minimum viable product with which to test and to optimize over time–don’t build a “Rolls Royce” if a “Toyota” can do the job to start.

·             

     7.STAFFING
The selection and training of individuals for specific job functions, and charging them with the associated responsibilities. the process of hiring, positioning and overseeing employees in your  organization.