Creating Your Own Business in 5 Steps

Important steps for creating your own business:

1. Start With A Clear Purpose

It is quite hard to come up with a clear purpose. Why do you want to start a business? Is it money, freedom and creativity? 90% of people will choose all of them. Don’t worry you’re not alone. Perhaps it is for some other reason?

Add below points, just to make sure that your purpose will stay super clear:

• What skills do you have? (you can lie to others, but not to yourself, so becareful…)
• What industries do you know about?
• Would you want to provide a service or a product?
• What do you like to do?
• How much capital do you have to risk?
• Will it be a full-time or a part-time venture?

You will need an idea for a business before you do anything else. You can conduct a market research to have a clear image. dentifying things people need and are willing to pay for, that isn’t provided in your area, or which you can provide better than anyone else.

Carry out a market study

The first step is to conduct market research for creating your own business. The latter makes it possible to define the profitability of the idea at the origin of the creation of a business.

To carry out this study, it is necessary to define the following elements:

• The offer: corresponding to the product or service offered by the company
• Demand: i.e. the customers to whom the products or services offered are addressed
• The environment: which consists of all the external parameters likely to influence supply and demand
• Commercial strategy: corresponding to the way of selling the product or service
  The construction of the provisional budget

2. Build On What You Already Have and Know

Relatively strong and motivating purpose is critical to long-term business success, but with varieties of opportunities can fulfill that purpose.

Make sure you get your starting point down before you jump into something that doesn’t creat staying power for you, your team and customers.

All of these questions can be answered in a well-written business plan.

Now that you have your idea in place, you need to ask yourself a few important questions: What is the purpose of your business? Who are you selling to? What are your end goals? How will you finance your startup costs? All of these questions can be answered in a well-written business plan.

A business plan helps you figure out where your future company is going, how it will overcome any potential difficulties and what you need to sustain it. If you’re planning to start a one-person business, you don’t necessarily need to worry about hiring anyone. But it might be helpful to create a plan for the future when you want to scale the business.

Build a business plan

The construction of the business plan is a very important step when creating a business. Its purpose is to present the business creation project. The latter is therefore an essential tool for convincing banks and investors when seeking financing.

The business plan consists of a written file composed of five parts:

• The introduction or presentation pitch
• The presentation of the product/service offered by the company
• Presentation of the business model/commercial strategy
• Market research
• The financial forecast

3. Launch Opportunities, Not Ideas!

Mastering 3 business areas to make your enterprise works better: finance & administration, sales & marketing and operations based on genuine need, credible experience, adequate resources and paying customers.

3 Key points:

• Finance & Admin: make sure that you have an ample manouver to move further by gauging well your business plan. No matter what happened the show must go on. Determine your legal structure, incorporation, insurance, secure permits and licences.
• Sales & Marketing: the sharp eye for “creating more from less”, increasing sales by understanding what customers want, how much they will pay and their behaviour; it contributes the success of your enterprise.
• Operations: make sure all activities involved in the day to day functions of the business conducted for the purpose of generating profits.

The choice of legal status

When setting up a business, the entrepreneur must also choose the legal form of his future business, taking into account the following parameters:

• The number of partners
• The amount of contributions
• The taxation of profits
• The social and tax system for partners

Read also: Forms of business ownership vary by jurisdiction

4. Develop Your Supporting Cast

You’re going to be investing a lot of time and resources into your new business.

Recognize that getting your business off the ground will take time. Most businesses don’t become profitable right away, so plan for that in your personal life too. You will be making sacrifices to be your own boss.

 Successful entrepreneurs build a supporting cast of people with the following ingridients:

• Brain trust attitude.
• Find passionate team member or if you work alone, find a passionate suppliers. Nothing is impossible!
• Vreate strategic partnerships. Business is all about trust and relationships. The more win-win affiliations you create, the more successful you will be.

I record my decision and I list the actions to be taken

When you have decided to create your business, you will have to take your first concrete actions:

if you are working, the choices to be made in relation to your employer (take creation leave, combine the two activities or leave the company),
discuss the project with your employer and indicate your wish to leave the company (ideally by mutual agreement),
and start discussing the project with your banker, potential investors you know and with an accountant if possible.

Then, regarding your project, you have to think about the following points:

• do you have elements to protect: your idea, your concept, a brand idea?
• do you have all the necessary skills to launch the project? do you need to find a partner?
• do I start from scratch or do I have the possibility, and if so, do I have an interest in joining a franchise network?

Does the exercise of the planned activity require compliance with certain obligations (possession of a diploma, special registrations, authorizations, etc.)?

I work and complete the financing of the business creation project.

Depending on the results of your forecast and the aid you can benefit from, you get an initial idea of the funding envelope you will need to launch your project.

It is strongly recommended to provide a larger budget than the calculated financing need.

Sometimes, some projects do not need any funding, but there are others (especially those for which investments are to be made) that require raising funds.

It will then be necessary to take the calculated amount of financing and allocate to it:

• the personal contributions you can make,
• the contributions of investors that you can bring into the project,
• the financing you can expect to obtain from credit institutions,
• the financial aid you can benefit from…

Do not neglect the post-creation stages such as the protection of your brand, insurance, ancillary costs, the drafting of your commercial contracts and T&Cs.

5. Maximize All Available Resources

Orchestre efficiencies while growing your business; trial and error but don’t make the same mistake twice. Make sure your product / service is appealing for the public, area and community not just in your perspective if not how can you make it more appealing? Be sensible.

Now is the time to start your business. For a serene first year, stick to the red thread of your business plan.

Gather the necessary human and material resources and start delivering. If you followed the previous steps correctly, you should be fine.

Manage and grow

Smart management means:

• Optimize fixed costs;
• Have a dashboard with simple and clear indicators;
• Take care of your customers;
• Anticipate market changes.
• Always decide with the future in mind! “ To govern is to foresee ”

Know how to sell your business

Promotion is arguably the most important step when starting a business. Without marketing, there are no customers and therefore no sales. Here are some examples of how to grow your business.

The creation of your website, an essential step whatever your business, and obviously crucial if you are creating an e-commerce activity. Follow our guide to creating a simple and effective website with a CMS.

Hold your strenght and go as far as you can

Congratulations, success is yours! Do you want to grow further and conquer new markets?

• Invest with the help of the Region (if available and possible)
• What financing(s) to develop my business?
• Export and internationalize

Photo credit: reidy68 via Pixabay

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