When on the road to a fresh start-up, all we want is super sonic speed that can lead us to our success as soon as possible. But in reality, this isn’t possible. You need to be hard working and dedicated in order to make it to the finish line – which is success in this case. However, you don’t need to be a whiz kid or a graduate with a 4.0 GPA to come up with a brilliant idea, all you need is some intense brainstorming and observation of ongoing trends in the market that you can take advantage of.
There is a wide range of success stories that you can get inspired by. Starting from someone whose life has been the most successful story of the decade, Steve Jobs down to an entrepreneur as ordinary as Mathew Osborne from Columbus OH, who found a way to make money out of dog waste.
Unlike most people who just complain about having to clean it up or stepping in it and getting their shoes dirty, he started a brand new business of removing dog waste from peoples yards. The business however proved to be an immediate success, and after several years, Mathew sold it for a quarter of a million dollars. And even after selling it, he continued to make money from his idea, this time by writing a booklet on how to start a pet waste removal business, further selling it on the Internet.
Another smart thing to do like a lot of successful business owner is to turn your hobbies interests and skills into pleasing and often profitable businesses, by observing a need in the world around you and finding a way to fill it, like Mathews did. A few guidelines or tips for how to start-up successfully.
Start a Business While You’re Already Employed
According to us, the best time to start your own business is when you’re already employed. You’ll have three big advantages that would help you smooth your business start-up and give your new business an improved chance of success while you’re already employed.
- You’ll have the initial funding from your already employed job.
- Getting the first client or customer may be easier. Since you’d have contacts from your already employed job.
- You’ll have testing time. Meaning in case the new business doesn’t work out you can resort back to your old job.
Think Out of the Box
Given the tough competition in the market out there, it’s very important that you think out of the box and brainstorm before you come up with the right concept. The key is to let your creative juices flow and observe the ongoing trends, get inspired and learn from the experience of other successful entrepreneurs. Search for substitute or commonly referred to as the ‘alternate’ ways that will aid the efficiency of your operations. Avail every new opportunity, that you personally think or feel your business can benefit from. Be open to doing things differently and be mentally prepared to look at new perspectives. Remember, do whatever helps you create value for your customers, preferably in ways that haven’t been tried out before, since that’ll also give you a marketing edge.
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Turn Your Passion into a Success Story
Whether you’re an expert at writing software or you’re brilliant at creating floral arrangements, look for ways to turn your hobby into a business. You can’t start a business by just thinking you want to start one. It requires focused thinking and effort. In short, businesses are made, they don’t just happen. You can either plan to profit by smile-generating shapes of twisted balloons, or you can plan the growth of a million dollar, multinational company. Your success, however, relies on you and what you bring to the table. So if your passion for the business is strong enough, the passion itself will act as a drive for you to be creative, knowledgeable and persistent. On the other hand, if you don’t really like or aren’t interested in what you’re doing, you will be less motivated to work for it.
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Spin It
It’s interesting to see how most of the new products or new business ideas are spin-offs of old ones. For example Inline Skates are simply ice skates on wheels and are also known as streamlined roller-skates depending on how you view them. Another popular/successful trend is that of finding innovative ways of marketing the same old ordinary businesses in a brand new exciting way. For example florists have been around since forever, running small scale local stores, until Jim McCann of 1800flowers.com, started a retail shop in 1976, got hold of the phone number 1-800-Flowers, since it’s easy to remember and started a brand new network of florists. Jim McCann saw an opportunity to mature online, and started selling on the Internet and hence grew from there on.
Image Courtesy: 1800flowers
You might not have the contacts, finance, management capacity, or the longing to launch a brand new product like inline skates or the energy to transform your single, small-scale store location into a multimillion-dollar sales company. But the whole point is that it does not need to be that large scale, to start a business or introduce a new product you need to ponder over the ongoing trends and avail the best opportunity they may have to offer. Just like 1800flowers.com, you can spin almost any skill or ongoing industry trend into marketable new services or products.
Devise a Business Plan
A business plan is like a 24/7, readily available outline for your business that helps you manage and steer your company. This plan doesn’t only help you, but also helps potential investors, partners, lenders understand your strategy and pushing you up the success ladder. A business plan needs to always be reassessed, modified, and improved according to the ongoing trends. This business planning process, should be carried out on a regular basis, so you can keep your business running in the right direction, aiding you to focus better on your final destination. A usual business plan includes details about your product or service (depending on what you’re selling), the competition and people you’re selling to, plus a cash-flow projection. You should also come up with a catchy name, a name that’ll sell, and as you contemplate over name ideas for your company, make sure you check the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s website to ensure they’re available.
Gather the Best Support System
You need a full fledged support system while you’re starting new and of course after you’ve established your company. Support can stem from a friend or a family member that you can discuss ideas with and people who will listen sympathetically to all the latest business start up issues and will suggest ways of resolving it. It’s even better for you to find yourself a mentor or, if you succeed, try out for a business start up program such as The Self-Employment Program. When starting new, business experienced guidance is the most excellent support system of all.
Be Professional from Day 1
Everything about you and the way you work is representative of your attitude and lets people know how professional you are in running a serious business. That means getting all the accessories such as a business phone and a business email address, professional business cards, and last but definitely not the least, treating people in a professional, polite manner.
Finance Opportunities
All your effort will go to waste if there is no finance. Keeping the financial crisis and the recession in mind, we need to understand that getting loans has become very difficult, to the point where even the ones with good credit records are having issues applying for and getting loans. The conditions are very strict for the existing companies, and are worse for the new entrants, since keeping the recession in mind banks only prefer lending to companies that have profitable cash flows. So if you’re planning to enter the market now, it’s advisable for you to rely on the unconventional sources of financing, because otherwise you’re bound to be disappointed considering the strictness prevailing in the market. The top alternative approach would be saving up for the capital you’d need, or relying on friends and family for short-term backing with an added incentive, for example, agree to a percentage ownership or a certain share out of the initial profits.
Legal and Tax Issues – Get them Right
It’s way more complicated and expensive to untangle a mess once after you’ve started. Questions like:
- Does your business need to be registered?
- Will you have to charge GST or PST?
- Will you have to have Workers’ Compensation Insurance or deal with payroll taxes?
- How will the form of business you choose affect your income tax situation?
In short you need to gain knowledge of what your tax and legal responsibilities are before you start your business and operate accordingly in order to enjoy a healthy future performance.
Keep the Organization Flat
The general trend of managers-reporting-to-managers will only create Politics. So it’s extremely advisable that you keep your chain of command as flat as possible.
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Make it Fun for the Employees
Keep a constant check on the stress levels and achievements of your people and reward them. Every time MicroSolutions, recorded the highest sales month, or whenever someone would do something special or worth recognition, the owner would hand out a $100 bills to that salespeople as an in incentive. At Broadcast.com and MicroSolutions, the owners would send their employees out to a bar every now and then and buy one or ten drinks for everyone.
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