You want to start a business to meet an unfulfilled need you’ve spotted in the marketplace. Your business idea excites you because it fits your passion and the more you research your idea, the more apparent it seems to you that there is a ready market for your product. Since it’s a business that can be done on the Internet, you can do it from home, working on it in your spare time when you get home from work and on the weekends.
Now that you’ve decided to go for it, let’s take a look at how you go about setting up your business and then what you need to do to improve your chances of success.
A 7 Step Plan for Setting Up Your Business
Here is a step-by-step outline of what you need to do to get your business off the ground:
First, start with a business plan. Although you may have a clear idea about your business, you need to put it all in writing. You need a formal business plan because a written plan will help you map out how to start and run your business.
Second, get a business address. While there are many reasons why it’s not a good idea to use your home address, two of the most important ones are that it will look unprofessional and you don’t want dissatisfied customers knocking on your front door. A simple way to get around this dilemma of working from home but not using your home address is to rent a digital mailbox service. A company like iPostal1 can supply your business with a real street address for about ten dollars a month.
Third, finance your business. If you can’t finance your own business, then look for funding from government backed loans, research grants, or venture capital.
Fourth, decide on the legal structure of your business. You have many choices available when it comes to the form of ownership of your business
Here are the most common choices:
- · sole proprietorship
- · partnership
- · Limited Liability Company (LLC)
- · Corporation
- · S corporation
- · non-profit
- · cooperative
Fifth, register a business name. This is usually referred to as a DBA or “Doing Business As”. You’ll register this name with your state government, and you’ll need to get a tax identification number from the IRS and the state revenue agency. You’ll also need to register for local and state taxes, for worker’s compensation, for unemployment, and for disability insurance.
Sixth, get any necessary business licenses and permits.
Seventh, understand your responsibilities as an employer. There are many legal steps you need to go through when you hire someone.
3 Steps to Improve Your Chances of Business Success
In order to improve your chances of success, you need to consistently improve your business. You can do this by focusing on steadily improving your personal abilities, the quality of your products, and the efficiency of your business systems.
Let’s take a look at each one of these areas of business improvement.
- Get increasingly better at the work that you do: If you’re missing some essential skillsets to be successful, then you must fill in the gaps. You might be able to learn what you need to know from classes at a local community college or from an online training program. However, even if you start your business with considerable knowledge and skills, there is always room for improvement. In this case, spend an hour a day getting better at whatever you’re now doing well. Over time, you’ll enter an elite category.
- Constantly improve your products: As you spend more time with customers, you’ll get a better idea of what they like and what they don’t like about your products. Use this feedback to improve what’s working and eliminate what’s not working. Continuous quality improvement will help you dominate your marketplace.
- Consistently refine your business systems:When you first start your business, you will probably use a business systemthat you either read about or that a business mentor taught you to use. However, it’s important to refine these business systems based on your personal experience as a business owner. The way to do this is to map your processes, analyze them, and then redesign them.
Being an entrepreneur could be one of the most rewarding ways to earn a living — because when it comes to making money, there is no cap on your income.
