Microsoft. Google. Amazon. All names that you must’ve heard at least once in your life. Today, these businesses are at the top of the market and have made a global impact in the last few decades. As more large businesses emerge and mark their place in the market, the number of small businesses also grows. You may need a college degree to work for an established business, but like Amazon, Microsoft, or Google, you can start your own business from your garage with no college degree! You can’t just wake up one day with the thought of starting a business. For a business to be truly successful, you need a creative idea with hours, weeks, or even months of planning. Before you start a business, you need to know some things, and this blog teaches you all what you need to know!
1. Find a creative and unique idea.
You need an idea to build your business upon. Think of the idea as a seed. You need the seed before you water it, adding fertilizer, and growing it. It’s what your garden (the company) grows from.
There are several questions you can ask yourself to find an idea for your company: What is something you can provide? What is something that you would use but is not present in the market? How can you improve a product in today’s market?
2. Conduct Market Research
Market research allows you to identify your target customers. It comprises consumer behavior and economic trends to improve a business. Gathering demographic date—age, wealth, family, interests, etc—allows you to better understand opportunities to gain customers. Think about demand, market size, economic indicators, location, market situation, and pricing as you are conducting market research. You can conduct market research using existing sources or directly. You can conduct this research directly through surveys, questionnaires, forms, interviews, etc. This allows you to gather enough information to drastically reduce risks even before your business is properly established.
3. Write a business plan
Writing a business plan is the first step in building a solid business. An excellent business plan guides you through starting and managing your business. You can use it as a template to structure, run, and grow your business. This will help convince potential investors that your company is reliable and a good choice. There are two main categories of business plans:
traditional or lean startup. Traditional plans are more common, use a standard structure, and encourage you to be detailed about everything. They require more effort and can be dozens of pages. Lean startup plans are usually one page long and follow a standard structure, but they focus on summarizing the most important points of all the key elements in your plan.
4. Determine your target audience
You need to identify who your product is made for. Is it made for elderly people? Teenagers? Babies? This will help you improve your product to better fit the needs of your audience. You will attract your target audience since your product suits their needs.
5. Choose a formation
Now that you have your product and your audience. You need to form your business. You can choose between a sole proprietorship, partnership, or corporation. A sole proprietorship is when you are the only owner of the business. A partnership is when the business is divided between 2 or more people. A minimum of 2 people is required to create a partnership. You can register your business as a one-person corporation or divide the business between 2 or more individuals.
6. Get business registration, licenses, and tax identification
You need to register your business to get the correct licenses, taxpayer identification number, and employer identification number. You need to make sure you get specific permissions if you need regulations to be flexible. Having an employer identification number helps you protect your identity, file business taxes separate from personal ones, and establish a reputation for your company.
7. Map your finances
Investors are interested in how much money your business will have in the beginning and how much it will need in the future.
Commenti