Are you thinking of starting a business around your new idea, or perhaps turning a hobby into it’s own business venture, then you’ll want to take heed of the following steps:
1. Research your market
Identify potential customers and talk to them and find out if your idea is meeting a real need in the market.
2. Develop and Plan
Test your product and service with real customers, make changes, and test it again. Keep going until you know your service is meeting all the needs of your clients and exceeding expectations.
3. Find partners and suppliers
Every business needs suppliers, even virtual online business needs suppliers for supply them with the hosting for their website but you’ll not only need to know the costs involved, but also what level of support they are willing to offer – when the server crashes, will your host leave you to sort it out yourself or will they offer a hand or even take over and restore the website for you?
4. Set up the Business
Do your research into the types of business available and find out which structure is right for your business? Is your business potentially risky and you need the personal protection of a Limited Company can provide, or will going into a partnership help you to raise the capital investment required?
5. Get Funding
Explore different avenues of business finance, from bank loans to government backed schemes through to searching for this illusive business angels.
Also research your “expected” revenue streams so you can see if your business is viable or not in the long term.
