While it is true that launching a business is something that you have to properly prepare for, one of the biggest mistakes that a lot of people make is postpone this for far longer than necessary. Look at it this way, once you start your business, it will most likely take you 6 months to 2 years to become self-sustainable. Your first enterprise may fail, so you may be forced to get a new start or pivot/rebrand in order to salvage it. Experience is an invaluable resource but you need to start harvesting it as soon as possible. Therefore, there are no delays and here are the top five considerations that will allow you to start your business by the end of the year.
1. Validate your idea
The first thing you need to do in order to validate your idea is to check if others are doing it. Next, you need to check if there’s a market need in your area, seeing as how failing to do this is the number one reason why startups are failing all over the place. Whether you are planning to start your business from scratch or you are planning to adopt the tried and tested Franchise way, you need to validate your idea. For example, if your plan is to be the owner of the best elderly care franchise, you need to validate your idea by understanding your community. Once you’re done with this, you need to make some financial projections and develop a business plan. In order to tell if this is a good idea or not, you sometimes need to see it on paper.
2. Budgeting and fundraising
Once you’re done with validating your idea, you need to address the issue of budgeting and fundraising. The first thing you need to consider is your expected expenses (salaries, your own salary, rent, utilities, supplies, equipment). Then, you need to proceed with unexpected business expenses (fees, penalties, malfunctions). Operational expenses and cash flow are yet another variable to add to this list and once you have an assessment of how much all of this will cost, you’ll know (approximately) what your financial needs are.
Next, you need to consider all the options that you have available for obtaining these funds. Most commonly, startups are funded either from one’s personal funds or from money borrowed from friends and family members. On the other hand, loans are just as common. Sure, those with collateral or a co-signer available might look for secured business loans. Fortunately, in this day and age, these are not mandatory and you can find favorable unsecured business loans just as easily.
3. You don’t have to have a perfect start
We’ve already mentioned that some people just can’t make themselves actually get started and this is usually due to the fact that people want a perfect start. You need to keep in mind that this is, most likely, not possible and that by trying to achieve it, you might just miss out on your window of opportunity or just outright waste your time. Randomness is not really a thing; you just don’t know all the factors. Fortunately, you don’t have to. Start by entering the industry cautiously and take some calculated risks.
4. Use the advantages of the digital era
One more thing you should consider is using all the advantages of the digital era. For starters, you can use cost-effective cloud-based platforms. Next, you should look for scalable business solutions like outsourcing, hiring equipment instead of buying it and more. You might also want to hire a remote workforce instead of moving to a bigger office. At the very least, you could consider the prospect of moving some of your employees to a shared office space.
5. Establish an online presence
Even in this day and age a lot of small businesses don’t have websites. This is a priority even for those who don’t run an online business seeing as how 78 percent of local mobile searches result in offline purchases. When it comes to the bare minimum, you need to have an official website, a blog, as well as register on all the major social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and make your official YouTube channel.
Conclusion
As you can see, the above-listed five tips are simpler than you might have expected. Sure, their execution is far from easy but success in the business world was never supposed to be easy, to begin with. If you’re unsure if you’ll be able to make it, just bear in mind that at this very moment, there are more startups and small businesses than ever before in history. If all of these entrepreneurs were able to make it, so should you be.
