How to start a business

Consider following these basic steps to start your own business:

1. Define your business goals

Start with establishing essential goals for your company. You can ask yourself some questions about your business idea to refine it:

• Why? It’s important that you know the purpose of your business and what motivates you to start it.
• What? This question helps you establish what product or service you’ll be offering.
• Who? Who is your ideal customer or client? Pay attention to specific demographics, such as age, location or income.
• How? Describe steps that you need to take to develop a product or service. Establish how you’ll deliver it to your customers.

2. Write a business plan

Consider using this information to write a business plan before officially registering and starting your company. A business plan serves as a guide for every aspect of your new business. It’s a road map that takes you from a simple inspiring idea to a successful company.

You can start a business based on your unique idea or choose to open a franchise of an already established company. This way you can make sure your primary responsibilities include business processes and running its operations, for example, a restaurant. The company will share their know-how with you that you can use to take care of things such as marketing and communications.

3. Conduct market research

It’s important that you know if there are other businesses in your area that are similar to what you want to offer. You can gather this information by looking them up on the internet using keywords relevant to your location and specific products or services. Pay attention to how they chose to set up their business model and prices. Doing this can help you structure your business in a way that allows it to stand out and attract more clients.

Another part of your research should include figuring out who your target customer base is and how your products or services will fulfil their needs. This information will also help you plan your social media and marketing strategies, advertise your business online and in physical form. For example, by printing posters or flyers.

4. Design your business structure

At this stage, you’ll need to make some important decisions to define your business:

• Legal structure: You need to choose what type of business you want to run. This determines the things you need to do to officially register your business. Typically, business owners choose to register as a sole trader, limited company or partnership.
• Banking and accounting: Some business owners handle their books alone, but you can consider hiring an Accountant who will help you with daily bookkeeping and taxes. To take care of business finances, in most cases you also need to open a separate bank account.
• Business name: Choosing a fitting name can help your business be memorable to customers. Brainstorm name ideas and make sure to check the company name availability as what you choose can’t be the same as another registered business’s name.
• Business location: It’s important to decide where your business headquarters is located and if you’re going to work from home or rent an office.
• Website and social media. Once you’ve figured out your business name, it’s important to set up a domain and register social media accounts that you’ll use to share updates about your business. You can also consider starting a blog or newsletter to promote it.

5. Obtain funding

With some businesses, chances are that you don’t need a lot of money to start your company. For example, if you’re an Online Consultant, you may not need any money and can start providing services to clients immediately.

In other situations, you will need to consider some ways to fund your newly registered business. Start by calculating how much money you actually need. Take into consideration the costs of opening your business and operating expenses such as rent, utilities and cost of materials. It’s best to see how much money you need monthly and use that data to create an annual budget.

Here are some popular ways to fund a business that you can research:

• Personal savings
• Family loans
• Small business loans or grants
• Online crowdfunding
• Investors

6. Design and develop products or services

When the essential goals of your business are established and you know what kind of products or services you’ll provide, it’s time to start the production process. You can order materials necessary to set up a manufacturing process or enter into partnerships with contractors or freelancers. It’s also time to develop policies and set up equipment. If you provide a service, it’s time to outline your processes and outcomes.

7. Create branding and communication

You can influence customers’ perception of your business by designing branding and communication strategies for it. Choosing a consistent colour scheme, including logo and typography for all your activities such as flyers or social media banners, can help you stand out. It also allows customers to easily recognise your brand online.

8. Promote your business

Consider how you will get the word out about your business so your target audience gets the message. Making sure your business information and what you offer is easily accessible can help you build relationships with customers that can positively influence your company’s success. Here are a few ways to do that:

• Print advertising
• Google advertising
• Billboards
• Discount codes and vouchers
• Influencers and affiliate marketing
• Indeed Company Pages

9. Build an effective team

Regardless of the type of your business or the industry, you may need to think about building a team to help with designing and manufacturing products or assisting you with providing services. That could mean deciding to hire your first employee. To find the most qualified candidate, you can advertise a job on Indeed.

10. Plan for business growth

It’s important that in the first years of running a business you focus on learning to lead, delegate and work with clients or customers. If you succeed very early on, you’ll quickly need to expand your manufacturing processes or prepare for delivering services to more clients. Growing your business may include:

• Studying market trends
• Testing new ideas
• Acquiring other businesses
• Growing into new markets
• Expanding product lines and services

Tips for hiring and managing employees

• Research hiring tools. Use Indeed’s Hiring Resource Library to stay on top of hiring trends and recruitment practices.
• Use remote options. Consider learning how to conduct virtual interviews and manage a remote team to guarantee that your business operates smoothly.
• Advertise jobs. Writing a compelling job description and advertising it online can increase your chances of finding the most qualified employees.
• Plan for onboarding. Making new employees feel comfortable is an essential part of your job as an employer. To do that, you can design an onboarding guide that will ensure seamless assimilation for them.