Thinking and planning to start your own business venture can seem like a daunting task if you’ve never done it before. Fortunately, plenty of other founders have, and you can learn through their wisdom from their successes and mistakes.
Starting a business doesn’t have to be hard or complicated, but it does take thorough planning and work. In this article, we’ll give you the basics on how to get started with your new venture from scratch.
Step One: Refine Your Idea, Figure Out What You want To Sell
Always think about your business prospects first to help you identify the products that you want to sell. Whether you want to start a low-investment business on the side or you’d prefer to go all-in on your idea, the best way to start and find a product or service to sell is by asking yourself these questions:
- Why do you want to start a business?
- What kind of product or service will you offer?
- Who will be drawn to this product or service?
- Are there any demand for this kind of product/service in this area?
- How many competitors do you have to deal with?
- How will you make your business stand out from the competitors?
- What are possible concerns buyers might have, and how can you address those?
Step Two: Conduct Research and Test Your Business Idea
Once you’ve finalized your idea, you can finally start conducting market research and analyzing your competition. In this step, you need to find out what people are looking for, understand your customer’s needs, how much they’re willing to spend on it, and the best way of engaging them.
Here are some of the questions to ask yourself while studying your competitors:
- Who are your competitors?
- What are their strengths and weaknesses?
- What are the characteristics of your ideal customers and your competitors’ ideal customers?
It’s also essential to research your target market because it will help you identify the products or service that will sell. Consider the target market’s demographics, where they live, work, and relax, and how you can reach out to them in the most effective way. This information should aim to get a response from your audience for your business to be profitable.
Because business ideas require mock-ups or prototypes, prepare a budget for you to conduct a market test. Finding a way to put your product or service in front of potential customers and seeing if they are willing to pay for what you’re giving is the best approach to test it. You can also find alternate ways to solicit feedback from potential clients if this is not feasible.
The last phase involves analyzing the competitor’s pricing framework to determine whether there is sufficient demand within their target market. You can begin building your business once your market research is complete and you have adjusted your business strategies, products, and services depending on the findings.
Step Three: Write Your Business Plan
After testing your business idea and finding your target market, it’s time for some serious planning. Writing a business plan will keep you on track and ensure that you’re headed in the right direction. This includes creating an action plan that outlines all of your short and long-term goal, as well as the people and technical skills required to meet those objectives.
A business plan should include these essential elements:
- Executive Summary: Summarizes your entire plan in a concise one-pager.
- Overview of your Business: Outlines the business or service details like your mission and vision, including information about your key selling point.
- Market Analysis: Describes the state of the market and key opportunities, including information about how you plan to reach this audience through marketing efforts such as advertising campaigns on social media platforms.
- Create a list or diagram that shows the timeline and how you plan to execute this business strategy.
- Competitive Analysis: Analyze your competitor’s that offers similar products & services. This section should have information about things outside your control but still relevant because it affects your business. You may consider the following questions:
- What are the things that might go wrong?
- What steps can you take to prevent these possible issues from occurring so that your chances of success drastically increase?
- Financial Strategy: Outlines estimated costs, earnings , losses, and financing plans.
Step Four: Assess and Plan Your Finances
One of the biggest challenges of starting a new business is making sure you’ll have enough money to see you through the challenging first few months. It’s important to analyze your financial needs to ensure that you have enough money. You need to figure out your expenses first before starting a business.
- How much money should you start with? This will help you figure out how much money you need to begin with.
- What are the expenses involved when starting a business? (e.g., marketing, website hosting, domain name registration, utilities, etc.)
- How long will it take before you can break even if everything goes according to plan?
When you know how much money you need to start your business, you can also figure out some financing options available for you.
- What is the difference between debt and equity?
- Do you have the means to fund your business?
- Do you need to raise or borrow money?
- What are the different ways you can support your business? (e.g., bank loans, friends and family, investments, etc.)
Step Five: Marketing And Content Strategy
A fool proof marketing and content strategy is important when you are getting started. This step includes strategies and tactics which you can use to get your business in front of your potential clients. This includes marketing, advertising, social media marketing, video marketing, and e-commerce marketing. Setting a budget each month for advertising will help you engage all your potential clients. It’s also important for you to plan on how you would execute the marketing strategy and the team needed for you to reach your objective.
After finalizing your marketing strategies, It’s a good idea to consider and plan how you will market your business. Whether you’ll need a website, a social media following, or a publicist, keep in mind what you need to do in order to promote your company without spending too many resources on advertising that might not work as well in this digital age.
Step Six: Make Your New Business Official
Once you’ve worked hard in finalizing your marketing strategy, it’s time to take your business to the next level by making it official. First you need to determine what kind of legal structure does your business need and why it is important.
Make sure your brand name hasn’t previously been trademarked before choosing it. After you have decided on the structure and brand name, It’s time to register the business and get all of the necessary permits and licenses to complete your business registration. Also, don’t forget to trademark your business name as well.
Step Seven: Build Your Core Team
Now that you’ve made your business official, it’s time to dive into building your team. Building a core team during the startup phase of your business is challenging. Be objective and identify what skill set you have and which ones the business needs that you don’t have. Managing a small team is much easier, giving you more time to focus on the most important part of your business.
This way, you’ll have a better idea of what skill sets you’ll need for your business. It’s also easier to hire someone later when you have some traction with your business.
Step Eight: Launch Your New Business
Finally, you’re ready to take the last and most exciting step! Even if you haven’t completed all of the steps above, start your business as soon as you can. There are two ways for you to do this, you can do a soft launch or a hard launch.
Sometimes the best approach to start and promote your business is through a soft launch. This means that before going live across all platforms, you’ll be launching the product or service in a trial mode to get some feedback from customers and potential clients.
The other option is by doing a hard launch, which means you’ll be deploying your business simultaneously across all platforms without seeking feedback first from your target market. Although this strategy may be effective for some businesses, it may garner negative results from customers who are unsure of what they are getting into.
Most importantly, consider outsourcing and hiring a talented agency to take care of your advertising needs. That way, you’ll have an incredible digital asset while focusing on your core business competencies. Stop spending a lot of time managing operational tasks rather than being at the center of your business’s growth. Hiring a creative agency like Whalemaker helps owners spend valuable time doing the right thing. You’ll be able to save around 30% to 50% compared to hiring full-time employees while also bringing significant benefits to the business. We will help you realign your priorities as a business owner with better expertise and lower costs.
