HOW TO START A BUSINESS IN 8 STEPS
For those of you who have not already started a business, or are trying to figure out how best to start your business, this article will help you learn the 8 steps of the process.
- DETERMINE IDEA
You can’t start a business without a good idea. Your idea needs to build a real-world solution to a real-world problem, preferably in a sizable market. And, in all cases, do what you love, as it is important you have a passion about your startup, to get through the good times and the bad. - SET EXIT EXPECTATIONS
You need to decide if you are building this business as a lifestyle business for yourself, as the sole owner, or if you are trying to attract outside capital. Because the things you would do for yourself, may be different than the things you would do for outside capital. Outside investors will most-likely require much faster growth and a clear roadmap to exit for their investment after around five years. Whereas, you may be personally fine building a small revenue business that covers your desired lifestyle, without the hassle of outside investors. - RESEARCH YOUR MARKET
Before you get started, you need to do some preliminary market research for your startup. How large is your market? How competitive is your industry? How well funded are your competitors? Is it a market that will appeal to venture capitalists? You want to make sure you know what you are getting yourself into before you start. You are practically trying to kill your startup before you start, and if you can’t find a good reason to kill it, you are off to the races. - BUSINESS PLANNING
Once you have finished your market research, you need a business plan where you determine your revenue model, build a sales and marketing plan and build a budget for your business. In addition to budgeting for the development of your product or service, make sure you leave enough budget to test your sales and marketing efforts and achieve a profitable cost of customer acquisition and proof of concept that will appeal to future investors. In all cases, set reasonable milestones to shoot for along the way. - BUSINESS FORMATION
Once you are sure you have a good and well-researched idea and business/financial model that makes sense, you should be in a position to launch your business. This includes answering frequent legal questions of startups (e.g., determining corporate structure, intellectual property protection, state of formation – see Bagla Law Firm Resources Page). And, it includes the basics of setting up your bank accounts, accounting policies and process, employee handbook policies and insurance protection (see Bagla Law Firm Shop Page). You also need to decide where best to locate your startup and how best to set up your board of directors and advisors. A good business lawyer will be critical here. - PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
Now, you need to build the actual product or service you plan on taking to market. That always starts with a good product and pricing strategy. And, where you can, “productize” your business for maximum efficiency and scalability. In building your product or service, you will need to decide if better to build your startup with in-house employees or third-party contractors. In all cases, you will want to build a minimum viable product with which to test and to optimize over time. - STAFFING
Now, you need to build your startup team, and determine your team’s roles and responsibilities. Once you know what roles you need to fill, you need to recruit employees for your startup, determine employee compensation, determine employee benefits and potentially set aside equity to key employees, protected by a time-based vesting schedule. In all cases, make sure you hire people that are well-suited to fast-moving, nimble startup environments, preferably with a proven track record at prior startups. - FUND RAISING
The last piece of the puzzle, which is required for any startup, is capital. For very early stage businesses, if not your own money, this most likely means finding angel investors for your startup and other boot trapping financing techniques. Any time you are offering equity for investment money, you need to have the proper documentation in place that is compliant with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
