Starting a business involves planning making financial decisions doing market research and acquiring knowledge in areas you never thought you would learn about.
Before, it is important to note that there is no one-size-fits-all model to starting a new business, but following steps will help you organize your thoughts and iron out important details so when you launch your business you have answered all the important startup questions.
1) Ask Yourself If You Are Ready!
There will never be a right time to start a business. If the stars could not align for Romeo and Juliet they probably won’t align for you either, but you can either look at that as the thing that holds you back from starting or use that to push you to start today.
When it comes to deciding, if you’re ready to start a business, it’s more about mindset than timing. Are you in the frame of mind right now to win? You might need to re-examine if entrepreneurship is the right path for you.
The reality is, saying you’re going to start a business is easy, but doing it and turning nothing into something that makes money that can be a whole lot tougher and you need to be mentally prepared to take something on.
There are going to be challenges like creating ads that generate sales and if your mindset isn’t in the right place any failure could devastate you.
2) Determine What Type Of Business To Start
The next step of starting a business is to figure out what type of business to start. Is there a niche that you’re particularly passionate about? Are you looking for a business that you actively work on or just own? Are you looking to turn your hobby into a business?
These are just a few of the questions you need to ask yourself before starting a business. To figure out what type of business you want to start, create a list of things you’re passionate about.
For example, yoga, personal finance, dogs, movies, food and clothing. You can also use Google Trends to analyze whether the trend is trending upward or downward or if it is stable to determine the niche’s long-term viability.
Then look at the top three most popular keywords on your list and answer this question! In five years from now which niche would not only get me out of bed in the morning, but would also excite me enough to continue creating content or products.
3) Choose A Business Model
After coming up with a business idea, think about how you’re going to execute it in your niche. This is where a business model comes into play. The business model is a strategy for how you’re going to provide value with your idea and make money off of your customer base.
When learning how to start a business, it helps to know about some tried and tested business models.
Here are four types of business models to consider: –
i) Affiliate Marketing: You can promote other businesses products and services online and receive a commission for each sale you make with this passive income idea.
ii) Freelancing: You can provide a service to other individuals and businesses using a skill that you have such as advertising, writing and designing or programming.
iii) Print-on-Demand: Print on demand is an order fulfillment method where items are printed as soon as an order is made often without order minimums.
iv) e-Commerce: You can use a service like Shopify to set up a website and sell physical products online.
4) Do Market Research
Next you need to get clear on your target market in other words who are you going to serve? This step is absolutely vital, as the marketer Philip Kotler once said: “There is only one winning strategy, it is to carefully define the target market and direct a superior offering to that target market.
Here’s the trick, make sure you are part of your target audience! Think about it, if you’ve been camping your entire life you’ll understand the problems desires and language of other campers.
As a result, it’d be much easier to sell camping products online plus your marketing will be more successful, because you’ll have a better understanding of how to communicate with other campers.
On the other hand, if you’ve never been camping in your life you’d probably struggle a lot to sell camping products online.
So, when choosing a target audience ask yourself! What are my hobbies and interests? Is there anything that I know a lot about? What do I spend most of my time thinking, talking and reading about?
5) Find A Problem To Solve
When learning how to start an online business, it’s important to note one key thing, all businesses solve a problem. Plumbers fix leaking pipes, Hollywood movies fulfill people’s boredom curiosity, interest and the need to escape and relax. Clothing brands help people express themselves and feel attractive.
Here’s the golden rule, the bigger the problem you can solve and the better you solve it, the more money people are willing to pay.
For example, take health care services, they solve a big problem which is why almost everyone is willing to spend a lot of money on it. On the other hand not many people will pay you to stop their table from wobbling as it’s not a big problem and they don’t need help solving it.
Bottom line, if you want to identify how to start an online business you need to find a good problem to solve, but how can you find a problem to solve?
You can join Facebook groups and online forums and ask people what they need help with. You can use Google Trends to find out what people are searching for. Find successful online businesses and identify the problem they solve then look for ways to do it better.
6) Set Realistic Goals And Expectations
One of the biggest reasons for failures in business comes from naive expectations. Some people pour thousands of dollars into ads thinking they will triple or quadruple their money only to end up with that big fat zero.
So, let’s try to paint what a realistic scenario looks like!
Your first year in business is all about failure. The reason is that it’s your first business.
I love how excited people are, as they begin learning how to start a business, but if you go into it thinking you’re going to dominate the world on day one you’ll be failing in a matter of months due to drastic disappointment.
The difference between a successful business and a failed one is perseverance. Do you have what it takes to keep promoting your business even when you have no customers or website visitors after a month?
Are you savvy enough to know, when a strategy just isn’t going to work? And are you patient enough to play the slow and steady game meaning that you might not see sales right away but will see bigger returns down the road!
Now that you know that those first few months will take every ounce of hustle you’ve got, how will you approach your goals in the foundation stage of your business?
Maybe instead of focusing on your first sale, you might focus on creating content to drive relevant traffic or maybe before you start a business you choose to build a following on Instagram so that you have an audience, when the time to launch comes.
7) Create A One-Page Business Plan
On a piece of paper hand write a plan for your business including:
• A problem your business solves
• A list of your target audiences
• A marketing plan
• Financial plans
• Financial projections for each quarter
This may sound outdated, as we are living in this digital age, but psychology proves that a hand written note has deep print on your mind than reading in on an screen.
Make sure to pin this business plan at your desk-board, where you can see it couple of time daily. You won’t believe, but this will surely help your maintaining focus towards your goals.
8) Get Feedback
So, now that you’ve got the idea, you’ve set some goals and you’ve created a plan. It’s time to get feedback on your idea. This stage has been known to kill many ideas and sometimes even good ones.
The point of the feedback stage, is to get a second opinion on how you can improve your idea. Instead of asking for feedback on the business idea, ask for feedback on a certain component of it.
Most cities have business centers, where you can speak with an in-house entrepreneur who will give you feedback on how to start a business. Some cities even have programs for younger adults that allow you to be mentored by an entrepreneur in your field.
Whether you’re planning to work on tried and tested or unusual business ideas, be sure to get feedback from the right people to help you inch closer to business success.
9) Find A Way To Pay For Your Business
The most common way people pay for their business is through their nine to five jobs. Avoid quitting your day gig until you’ve generated enough to pay your costs taxes and yourself with a six months runway.
In the beginning, you likely won’t be able to pay yourself as you’ll need to reinvest your earnings back into your business, so you can scale the business faster.
However, some businesses have very minimal costs, such as freelance businesses which might require some software or a computer that you might already own or have access to.
10) Pair Up With A Partner
Solopreneurship is on the rise and so this won’t apply to all, but success in business sometimes comes in pairs. There’s going to be a lot of time and resources that’ll go into your business and having someone you trust to build alongside you can allow you to break up the workload so you progress faster.
11) Name Your Business
This often neglected, but its one of the crucial things for any business to scale. Name is the firt step to build a successful brand. Name you choose for your business shouldn’t only be catchy, memorable and easy to spell when heard, but it has to resonate with the solution your business is offering for a particular problem.
12) Register Your Business
In some cities or states, you don’t need to register your business until you’ve earned a set amount of income or profit from it. So, you’ll need to do your due diligence to see what laws apply for you.
Its highly recommended to book a trademark for the product or idea as well, so that you have peace of mind of not being stolen or copying by others.
Now that you know how to start a business there’s an exciting adventure of creating one that awaits you. Pushing yourself to finally take life by the horns and take that first step can be a bit scary, but once you get started you realize that the process of starting a business can be pretty fun.
There will be challenges and roadblocks along the way, but as long as you push ahead and learn from your mistakes there is nothing that will block your success. All you need to do now is take that first step and you’re well on your way to starting a business.
That’s all for this article. I hope you find this article helpful, if you like above suggestions please do share this article in your circle. You never know, after reading this, someone that you know may take his/her first step to a successful entrepreneurship. Hope to see you again, cheers 🙂