Ok, so you want to start a business, how else would you have found my blog? If you already have a business in mind, know your consumer base, and have already started generating interest in your idea, you can skip this post as you’ll get nothing new from it. Otherwise, read on...

Ok, so you want to start a business, how else would you have found my blog? If you already have a business in mind, know your consumer base, and have already started generating interest in your idea, you can skip this post as you’ll get nothing new from it. Otherwise, read on. You might just find the inspiration for your next business venture.

If you want to start a business the first place you should look is in the mirror. What interests you? What skills do you have? Do you know anyone with significant contacts in an industry you could use? The business you create should be in something that interests you, there’s no point in investing thousands of hours into a project that you hate. It is possible to enjoy work, especially if you’re working for yourself. If you can’t think of anything straight away its not an issue, these things can come to you when you least expect it. The next time you get frustrated because something isn’t working how you like it, think of a way to make it work, you never know, this could be your next big break.

Once you have a general idea of the industry or business you want to go into, you can start evaluating the market. It’s important you know the market you’re going into so make sure you know who the big players are, online shopping? You’ve got to compete with the likes of Amazon, eBay, and the millions of other online shops. Opening a restaurant? You’ll have to look into the local chains, mom and pop cafes, and every other restaurant in the area. What I’m trying to get across is that there are probably already businesses like yours out there, so in order to stand out you either have to do something better or do something new that consumers want.

A good way to find what new things consumers are looking for is in Google trends, they show you key words people have been searching for. This is a very useful researching tool to see what gaps already exist in the market, if people are searching for a something, they don’t know where to find it already. This is a good indication that nothing exists to fill this need already, you could create the next business to fill that gap in the market.

This is a screenshot taken from the Google trends page, and shows what people search most after the word ‘Where is’. As you can see there’s a lot of people searching for the filming locations of TV shows and shows a potential gap in the market for an app that displays this information. You would have to do more research than relying purely off Goggle trends, but if you have an idea in mind, this is a good tool to highlight any existing interest.

Ok so if you’ve got this far, I’ll assume you have a business idea in mind. Now you need to figure out who your customers are, for some products this will be obvious, but others might be a little more obscured. This task isn’t as difficult as it may seem at first, since there’s massive collections of people all over the internet you can propose your idea to who will give their feedback for free. Social media is your friend when creating a start up business.

Post a questionnaire to Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Linkedin, basically everywhere you can to get the maximum number of results back, from the most varied audience. Then all you’ll need to do is collate the info and work out who is interested in your idea and what they have in common. A lot of the time gender and/or age will be a significant factor on whether someone is interested in your idea. Alternatively, it could be more location based, it really depends on your idea but this is one of the best ways to figure out your target market for a new business idea.

You’ve got the market, you know the idea, and you have the ideal target market in mind, what next? Now its time to start thinking about cash flow, starting a business isn’t going to be cheap, even if you don’t need to hire anyone to work for you, you’ll still need money to live yourself...

You’ve got the market, you know the idea, and you have the ideal target market in mind, what next? Now its time to start thinking about cash flow, starting a business isn’t going to be cheap, even if you don’t need to hire anyone to work for you, you’ll still need money to live yourself. This post will go over the most effective way to start generating capitol for your new business, and how to spot the best option for you.

Before you look into the best method of funding, you’re going to need to figure out how much it’ll cost to run your business. Every business is different so you won’t find a straight answer for this question, without working it out for yourself. There are a variety of factors that come into this, the biggest being your type of business, a web design business is going to have vastly different over heads to a high street restaurant. You’ll have to look into every possible avenue that could cost you money in the foreseeable future, land rent, prototyping, staff costs, server costs, utilities. Running a business isn’t cheap, even if you’ll be running it yourself without additional staff.

A relatively new method of generating funding for a business that’s not ready to start trading yet is through crowd funding. With this you can show your idea to people all over the world who can invest in your business, potentially for some type of reward. Normally the company will promise to send out an early version of their product to the backers, but this isn’t necessary. Take a look at https://www.kickstarter.com/ to see what type of businesses are on there. Businesses that are quite arty do better on crowd funding websites than say a local restaurant business, but if your idea has a unique twist it could still be worth posting as this will generate interest.

Next you’ve got the option of going to a bank for a loan, where crowd funding doesn’t cost a penny, a bank loan could set you back considerably if you don’t look into repayments and interest rates so its important to shop around for the best deal on the market. They will also want some sort of collateral like your house, car or other valuables, so you’ll need to have some assets if you want to go down this route. Keep an eye out for pay day loan companies though as they’ll entice you with low interest rates and free gifts, but you could get caught out if you miss a payment, going with a reputable bank is always the safest option when looking at this method of funding.

If you’ve had no success with crowd funding, and the banks don’t have enough collateral then you’ll have to look down other avenues for funding. Friends and family might not appreciate you asking for money straight away, but you could give them a stake in your business in return for a cash advance. This method is probably the riskiest of all because if your business ends up not taking off, it’s not just you going down, your friends and family are now out of pocket too. That’s why I’d only suggest taking this route if you have no other option.

Now you have the cost of running your business settled, and you know where you’re going to get the finance to start your business from, you’re going to need to decide on a pricing structure for your business. Too high and no one will want to give you their custom, too low and you could end up being seen as the budget option, if this is what you’re going for, then great! If not, take a look at the current market and see what your competitors are charging and decide if you want to go lower, or go higher and be the premium option.

This has been very effective for a number of companies, the first that comes to mind for me is Grey Goose, they priced their vodka at almost double the price of the majority of their competitors. That along with releasing a premium looking bottle made their product the premium choice. On the other end of the spectrum is Ryan Air, they have gone for a cheaper business model charging less than their competitors for similar services. Both are successful pricing models, you must choose which is right for your business but once you have chosen one it will be difficult to change if your product gets popular.

Its important you keep an eye on your profit margins as well, sure selling your products cheap could mean you sell more, but if you’re not making as much profit as selling fewer at a higher price it could be time to change. Pricing doesn’t have to be set in stone, but if you establish a premium brand and make it cheaper it’ll be easier than going the other way.

Now you should have a good idea on where to look for initial funding, whether you choose to use one of these methods or go down a less conventional route is up to you. You can always look back at this post for inspiration in the future if you get stuck, at the bottom of this post are some links to successful crowd funding campaigns to get you started. You should also have a general idea of how to price up your business, have a think about going in at the top for a premium product, or low balling your competition by under cutting them. Both can be very successful if done correctly, but you’ll struggle to switch strategies once your business takes off.

Right so you’ve got the idea, you’ve got the plan, you’ve got the product and the pricing sorted and you’re ready to go to market. When you get there you better be ready for the competition, even if your idea is unique, competition will pop up soon when they see what a success you’re making of your business...

Right so you’ve got the idea, you’ve got the plan, you’ve got the product and the pricing sorted and you’re ready to go to market. When you get there you better be ready for the competition, even if your idea is unique, competition will pop up soon when they see what a success you’re making of your business. This post will go over the different ways to deal with competition and how to keep your business fresh in the eyes of your customers.

Firstly you need to know your competition, check them out, visit their store, get a quote from them for a product you already own, any thing to see how they work as a business. This will help you grasp how they work and if they do anything different to you. You never know, you could learn something from this process. If they do something better than you, its time to improve so that your business keeps its top spot in the market. If your competition has a unique selling point you don’t then you’re missing out on potential business and its time to look into growing your company.

You also need to know who your customers are, sure you’ve already done this when deciding on a product to bring to market but times and people change. People like new things, there’s no getting away from that so its important to keep your business bringing out new and interesting ideas. If you own a restaurant start doing offers on certain days to drive customers in, high-street stores can do something similar too. If you’re running an online business it will be a little more difficult, but not impossible. Run a new ad campaign, start selling something new, differentiate into new markets but remember not to alienate your current customer base.

Running a business is no easy task, especially a brand new start up. You will constantly be solving problems, you’ll have several sleepless nights and you may even miss a party or three. But being able to sit back at the end of the day and know, “I’ve made that” is definitely worth it.