Business Ideas | Small Business Ideas: How to Start a Business

Thursday, October 30, 2014

How to Start a Business | Small Business Ideas

Setting up your own business can be an exciting time. Before you start, save yourself time and money by being aware of what's involved in running a business.

Investing time into proper planning is key to turning your dreams into reality. Operating a small business is not just about working for yourself or working from home, it's also about having the necessary management skills, industry expertise, technical skills, finance and of course a long-term vision to grow and succeed.

Starting a business is a multi-step process that can feel overwhelming when you're on your own, but we'll make it easy to stay organized and on track while you start your business and achieve success. Whether you're refining your business idea, filing for permits and licenses, drafting your business plan, or looking for funding, we have the tools you need to do it right and get it done.

Most entrepreneurs talk about how great is to start your own business, and that’s why so many people decides to start a business and then they find it is not what they thought starting a business should be.

Thinking of starting a business?

It's important to consider whether you really understand what's involved and whether you're suited to business and self employment. Start by asking yourself these questions:

what do I need before starting a business?
what type of business should I start?
how do I choose a business name?
what skills do I need to start a business?
what are my business goals, objectives and skills?
how much income will my business need to generate?
what are the advantages and disadvantages of starting my own business?

The Key to Success a Business Factors:

You Will Be Your Own Boss

This is one of the biggest fallacies of building a business. I've worked for big companies, in a University, in Institutes, for small companies… but I have never had so many bosses as when I have started my own business:

When you start your own company, your first “bosses” are your customers, as you need to cover their expectations and you need their money to run your business. You shouldn't develop your product as you think it should be, but as your customers say it should be. A key to any company is to be user/customer concentric, so if you don’t consider that your customers are, in some way, your bosses, you’d probably fail.

And your employees would also become your bosses, as you need an awesome team and if you have completed an awesome team, it’s hard to find a good replacement to anyone of your team. And you can continue adding ‘bosses’: your investors, core partners, key providers, etc. You will receive pressures from a lot of people, and probably you’ll miss to have a boss that let you focus on your tasks and main goals.

You Will Do What You Like Most

Really? As you may become ‘your own boss’, you will start managing people, and maybe management is not what you want to do. I've always been happy as a developer, and I really miss the time when I could spend several days coding awesome features or improving processes. But nowadays I have to manage teams, I have to talk to customers and potential customers and sometimes I have to give bad news, or even to fire people.

It’s not what I thought it was when I started my own company, but I don’t complain about it. In fact I’m really happy to learn to manage all these new thing I have to manage, I develop new skills, I love to try to understand what our customers want and need, and I've learn a lot about a lot of things, which makes me think that if I had to start my business again, I’d do a lot of things in a different ways, and also wouldn't do a lot of things that I did in the past or wouldn't worry about things that I can see now were not relevant in some moments. So I’m happy to be doing what I do now, but I also know that I’m not the average people, I've always been a ‘full-stack worker’ in whatever task I've done, and I like to learn new things and get in front of new challenges. And a lot of people prefer to stay in the comfort zone, and continue doing what they do best.

So if you start a business thinking that you’ll be doing what you like most, think about it, and question if it’s better for you to find a job where you can continue doing whatever you want to do, or if you are ready to start a business and become a CWO, which means that in the beginnings you’ll be doing whatever is important to your company and you have no employee qualified to do, and when the company grows, you’ll be managing people and loosing to code awesome features or make beautiful designs for your app or whatever you love to do.

You Will Have Time For Yourself

The first time I heard a person that he hated his job because he worked so many hours and he wanted to start a company in order to have enough time for himself, I couldn't avoid to laugh. I’m always looking to have more time for doing sports, and for relaxing a little bit, but the reality of an entrepreneur is that you are always looking ways to improve or to optimize critical processes for your company, so it’s harder for you to have time for yourself, compared to being an employee.

In fact, I think that if you start a business and you really start to have more time for yourself, something is wrong because it’s hard for me to understand that if you’re more committed to your work, you can dedicate fewer hours to it.

You Will Become Rich

In fact if you calculate the odds, I think it’s even easier to become rich with the lottery than starting a business. Every week, a lot of people from around the globe win million dollars gambling, but only a few entrepreneurs per year makes several million dollars selling their companies.

In fact, to start your own business, you’ll need to invest your money. Probably, you won’t have a salary during the first months, and maybe you’ll convince your family to invest in your company. If your company fails, you’ll loose a lot of money, and you’ll be loosing the opportunity to earn more money in any other company. So when you start a company, it’s normal that you want to make money selling the company, but you also have to think if you want to be managing a company that won’t make you rich.

Reference

How to Start a Business

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Easy Tips and Ideas to Start Business

Although anyone can start a business, many people fail because of a bad product or improper research. If you want to start your own business, you can improve your chances for success before you even begin. In order to make your business successful, start strong and make sure that your idea will hold out for the long haul.

Have a Good Product

Ensure that you plan to sell something useful. Although you may think that your product is important or special, that doesn't mean the general public will agree. Ask friends, family and strangers what they think of your product. If they don't seem that interested, ask them why. With their suggestions, you can either improve the product or scrap the idea completely. According to Brad Sugars of Entrepreneur magazine, most small businesses fail because they sold a product that didn't have an adequate market. This also applies to small businesses that provide a service. A lawn-care business might be useful for part of the year in a northern state, but it is in-demand year-round in the south. Consider whether people will actually want to use your service and get constructive advice from those not afraid to give their opinion.

Research Local Businesses

Research local companies before starting up your own business. This will not only give you an idea of the amount of competition you will have, but it will also help you price your product or service. If you're looking to start a wedding photography business, you may find during your research that the market is over-saturated in your area. If not over-saturated, you should contact each business and ask them for a price list. Alter your prices so you can stay competitive with the competition in town. Researching similar local businesses will also help you decide where to locate your business location. Try not to start up a store or office close to another business of your type. If your small business is located away from similar business types, this will cause locals to choose you over businesses that are farther away from where they live.

Get Professional Advice

You may know someone who has started their own successful business. Ask him for advice and listen to his stories of how he started his company. You may gain useful advice on the good and bad ways to start a business. Local entrepreneurs can also introduce you to local product providers or advertisers that you may not have met without their help. Accept any advice with open arms, especially if the advice is coming from someone successful in the area.

How to Calculate Business Start Up Costs

Starting a business in no easy endeavor. It takes a great deal of research, perseverance and hard work. While sweat equity will make your small business more successful, you will most likely need real capital to get the business started. Before you start raising capital and/or investing your own funds, the first thing you need to do is determine the total start-up costs.

Step 1

Determine your costs of sales. For most small businesses this means inventory, the cost of raw materials, manufacturing equipment, shipping, packaging, and warehousing. However, not all businesses sell products. In this case, the cost of sales is primarily the direct labor involved in making the sale. For example, to open a small shoe business entails purchasing enough inventory ($10,000) to stock the store.

Step 2

Determine professional fees. Planning your business structure, i.e., limited liability corporation or general partnership, means hiring an attorney. There may also be the need to pay an attorney for help with establishing trademarks, copyrights, and patents. In this scenario, that puts total professional fees at an estimated $20,000.

Step 3

Determine technology costs. Technology can greatly reduce the cost of labor for small business if used effectively. Most small businesses require computers, printers, cell phones, website development, Internet access, software applications, information security, data storage, and outsourced information technology (IT) consulting. If the cost of technology is $10,000 to start, add an additional $5,000 a year for maintenance (hint: maintenance is not included in start-up costs).

Step 4

Determine administrative costs. This varies with business types and may include items such as business insurance, office supplies, product packaging, parking, rent, express shipping, desks, chairs, fax machines, phones, or anything else necessary to operate the business daily. A good estimate for start-up administrative costs would be $5,000 for the first six months.

Step 5

Determine initial sales and marketing costs. Now that you have your product, you need to let folks know about it. Sales and marketing costs generally include marketing materials for presentations, printing stationery, business cards, advertising, trade show events, and public relations. These initial sales and marketing costs can add up to $3,000.

Step 6

Determine the wages and benefits needed to secure a staff. This includes employee salaries, benefits, workers compensation, and payroll taxes. Let's put the cost of wages and benefits estimated at $20,000 for the first three months of business.

Step 7

Add all costs associated with starting the business for a total. Be sure to only include business start-up costs that will be incurred in the first three to six months of operations. For this example, the calculation is: $10,000 + $20,000 + $10,000 + $5,000 + $3,000 + $20,000 = $68,000.

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