Category: Starting Up

Overview

There are millions of people in the United States that have a dream of starting their own business. However, many people find out that there is much more involved in starting their own company than they think. It is important for anyone that has this dream to do the work on the front end that is required to succeed. Starting a successful company does not happen quickly, and anyone that wants to succeed over the long term needs to be prepared to put in a lot of time and money. Here are five ways to know if you are prepared to start your own business today.

Do I Have The Time?

Starting a company from the ground up requires a lot of time. There are many people that are so busy with their lives that they simply do not have enough time to become a business owner. Before you go out and start a company, it is important that you ask yourself if you have the time to do so. A company owner should be good at time management as he/she should be prepared to spend many hours at night and on the weekends working on building the business. If you are not ready to do this, starting a company may not be right for you.

Do I Have The Money?

Although time is a huge requirement for building a company, money is also a big part of it as well. There are many companies that require tens of thousands of dollars in order to get started. Many young entrepreneurs do not have the capital on their own to get started. Many times they must resort to borrowing from other investors. A new way of gaining funding is to sell pieces of ownership in the company for cash. However, be careful not to sell all of the company away in its early stages.

Is There A Market?

Even if a person works 24 hours a day, if there is no market for the product they are selling they will not be successful in business. It is important to examine the market size on the front end of starting a company. There are times when a company can be successful by introducing an entirely new product or service to the world. However, it is much easier to succeed when there is already a proven market to sell to.

Is This My Passion?

There are going to be times when running a company that times get tough. It is important that you are passionate about the products or services that you are providing the market place in order to keep going when things do not go according to plan. There are many entrepreneurs that can stay engaged in their workflow for days at a time because of their passion. One of the most well known business owners today is Elon Musk. He has said many times that passion is the most important form of currency in the world today. Anyone that is starting a company needs to make sure that they are passionate about running a company.

Who Is My Core Customer?

Any company that wants to succeed and grow over the long term needs to have a clear idea on who their core customer is. There are many companies that do not have a firm grasp of this concept. As a result, they are not going to be able to reach their customers as effectively as other companies. Always make sure that you know who your core customer is before you start a company. Always make decisions based upon the reaction that your core customer will have. At the end of the day, one of the best ways to improve your business is to make your core customer happy. One of the best marketing tools is a satisfied customer, and this is especially true if this is the core customer to your business.

If you’re a hairdresser, or you’re thinking of becoming one, then the idea of owning your own salon could be the dream that you’re aiming for. Read on for tips on how to start a successful hair salon.

Who’s Suited to this type of Business?

You need to have experience in hairdressing yourself (about five years at least), before you go into owning your own salon. It won’t be the biggest money maker, so you need to make sure that you’re doing it because you love it.

You’ll also need business skills as well as the skill to cut hair. This may mean that you have to go on a management or book keeping course, for example.

Starting a Business

As with any business, you need a certain amount of money behind you. If you’re setting up from scratch, you’ll need some money for premises and equipment before you can even open.

You need a business plan. Think about the responsibilities of each of the people involved, what kind of clients you want to attract, etc. Find more information on formulating an effective business plan here. There is a wide variety of different types of salon out there, from those that target young professionals to older customers who can’t do their own hair.

The Rules and Regulations

A salon will typically contain a wide range of electrical items that have the potential to be dangerous, so you need an electrician to check items every two years.

When it comes to hair dyes and shampoos, you need to adhere to the regulations known as Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH).

Staff need to be trained and qualified to GNVQ Level 2 to cut customers’ hair.

Tips for Success

• A good location can make all the difference. Make it easy for yourself and pick a location that will mean that you’ll have plenty of people walking past your shop door. The salon premises is the biggest outgoing that you’ll have so make sure that you can afford it!
• Save money on the initial fit out and only get the essentials. When you begin to make a profit, you can invest in higher quality equipment or more services.
• Invest in software like this from Phorest to help you keep the customers that you have coming back for their next haircut or salon treatment.

Want a cab to arrive or at your doorstep within minutes? Want the grocery to be express delivered to you? Fret not, because startups are here to rescue you from all the worrying, and to make the process seamless and easy. The world is witnessing a startup culture of sorts in every vertical, whether it be health, commute, e-commerce or any other space, you will find yourself being served by startup companies which are born out of great ideas to make things even more convenient in your day-to-day life.

You are probably inspired and are deciding to take the leap yourself and launch your own start-up. However, there are some crucial steps you should be taking before you decide to run with your idea:

Take a good look at your industry: It is very important to do your market research and get a good understanding of the industry you are about to step into before you make your move. The process will allow you to gather much needed information such as the viability of your product, market saturation, your target audience amongst other statistics. The information will give you the liberty to decide which direction would be best for you and your business.

Put together a strong core team:  There is nothing like the support of efficient, hardworking and knowledgeable professionals to assist with setting up and running the business as well as ensuring smooth operations. A good technical team along with a really good business attorney, accountant and other professionals will give you the much needed confidence to step out and make your mark.

Get your funds in line: You will have to ask yourself whether you are equipped to bootstrap or will need to secure funding from venture capitalists or angel investors. In case you are managing your personal debts at this time, you could rely on services such as the National Debt Relief to rid yourself of debt-related worries before you begin a new chapter of your life. If your company is under heavy loan at the early stage, you must ask yourself what is debt consolidation and clear-out every possible hurdle which come across your steady financial graph. Once you have zeroed in on how to proceed with funding your business and have zeroed in on the revenue model, you can charge right at it, backed by your efficient team.

Conduct a test-run of the business model: The conduction of a demo of sorts, of your business model will give you a very clear idea about the model’s strengths and weaknesses. A demo allows you test the robustness of the model. You could deploy various feedback tools and resources online to make the process easier, and based on the observation, feedback and results, you can make the required changes. Once all boxes are checked, the entire process will work as a confidence-booster for everyone involved.

Think public relations, marketing and advertising: Ensure that soon after setting up, the first thing you look at is getting the word out about the existence of your company and the services or product it offers. As a startup, it is highly important to make your audiences aware and that you are here to stay. You will have to zero-in on your marketing strategies as well as cut out the budget for the same.

Startups are all about creating a difference, serving a certain need and filling a gap and enjoying while doing all of that, so make sure you have your heart in it, in order to be able to create a dent in the startup space.

Opening a restaurant is a notoriously risky business. Bloomberg Business reported that about 1 in 4 restaurants close in the first year of opening, and 3 of 5 close within three years. Those are daunting figures for inspiring entrepreneurs who have a foodie dream.

Instead of thinking about the chance of failure, it is important for would-be restauranteurs to learn about the common reasons for failure and to develop the right plan for success. Here are a few things you can do to help beat the odds and create the successful restaurant of your dreams:

Perform Thorough Market Research

A Jamaican restaurant might not work in your neighborhood, but French cuisine might prove to be wildly popular. Even with the right cuisine, you might find that a formal setting won’t be successful, but a casual, family setting will be. The only way to know what concept will work is to perform thorough market research.

Your research should help you identify the type of cuisine you will serve, the atmosphere, your target audience and even the menu items you should include. The more market research you can conduct, the better prepared you will be to create the right plan for success.

Pick the Right Location

Even within a certain neighborhood, different streets can mean success or failure for your restaurant. Even putting your restaurant on one side of the road or the other can determine its success or failure.

A special part of your market research should be determining the right location for your restaurant. Be thorough in your research. Once you settle on a location, it will be hard to change it. Make sure you get it right the first time. Simply having the right location can account for a large part of your success.

Write a Solid Business Plan

Every business needs a good business plan. Your business plan will lay out how much money you will spend to open your restaurant, your operating costs (including inventory and payroll), your projected sales, the time to achieve profitability, and much more.

Your business plan will help you determine if your restaurant idea has the potential for success. You will also use your business plan to show investors the viability of your restaurant to raise capital.

Start Small and Grow

You may have dreams of a chain of restaurants stretching across the country and even the world, but you have to start slow. Take entrepreneur Ricardo Vega Serrador as an example. He started with a couple of Go Mart convenience stores in Mexico, and he worked his way up to own numerous fast food franchises throughout Mexico, including Subway and Wendy’s.

Make sure your first restaurant is doing well before you think about expanding. Then put away any profits you make — minus what you need to support yourself — toward capital for starting your next restaurant. Before long, you will start growing your own foodie empire.

Put the Right Marketing Plan in Place

The right marketing plan is essential to the growth of any business. No one will know about your restaurant or chain without the right marketing. Put aside capital to invest in a professional marketing firm that will get the results you need. When you are just starting out, you can handle your own marketing, but you’ll want to turn it over to the professionals once you start to grow. The right marketing firm can get you results quickly.

Don’t let your dream of owning your own restaurant turn into another statistic. Do the right research and put together the right plan, and you’ll be celebrating restaurant success before long.

Image Courtesy of Quill.com

Article Contributed by Taylor Tomita

If you find yourself reading this article – odds are that you are interested in starting a business. Thankfully, this era we are living in provides seemingly endless opportunities for businesses of all varieties to rise from the shadows and be launched into the world of success. With today’s technology blended with knowledge and determination you can start a successful business from just about anywhere you desire. Hewlett-Packard founded their business in a garage – why can’t you?

Although this great time we reside in provides a plethora of tool and resources that are necessary to guide us down the path to success, it is important you are just as committed to the business world as it is to you. This guide should create a path of inspiration and knowledge of how to succeed in the business world of today.

Technology

Technology is an industry that will always be changing and it is important for a business owner to be aware of these changes. Taking advantage of technological advancements can be a surefire way to maximize a business’s success. New technologies are opening up opportunities for businesses to automate their necessary work orders, manage meetings from a smartphone internationally, or simply share documents over a cloud service. Whatever your industry is, it is important to analyze that industry and ensure you are utilizing the most efficient technologies to streamline the efficiency of your business to provide convenience to both you, and most importantly, your customers.

A large part of technology’s role in the business world is granting a business the ability to engage with their community over the internet. That being said, many businesses are doing the exact opposite. Though it is often overlooked, community engagement through social media is a fantastic opportunity for you to brand your business as an authority in the industry and paint a positive image behind your business.

Tools To Use

Quora – Quora is an online tool that allows businesses of any variety to answer community-generated questions. This can show you what your community wants, and will provide an inlet into the industry where you can ensure your services are the answer to these questions.

MosaicHub – As the name suggests, MosaicHub is a diverse online networking hub that allows industry experts to share their knowledge and insight within the industries they serve.  MosaicHub also allows an expert directory where the community can browse specific industries and request advice from you.

Education

Of course being knowledgeable of your industry is a necessity to starting a business, but learning every detail in and around your business will be a deciding factor in whether or not your business makes it out of a start-up phase. There is a vast sea of tactics that will assist you in educating yourself within the realm of business. However, one of the most valuable tactics available is obtaining a business degree.

A growing percentage of employers are hiring employees based on their college education. Why shouldn’t you – a future employer – be held to the same standards? Acquiring a business degree will grant you and your business an enormous leg-up in the business world; doing so will grant you the ability to operate every aspect of your business successfully with confidence and credibility.  Thankfully, there are a number of accredited universities throughout the nation who are currently offering opportunities to receive a business degree.  Here are a few universities that stood out to me when I was searching for online business degree programs:

United States University

830 Bay Blvd.

Chula Vista, CA 91911

Program: Masters of Business Administration (MBA)

College of Westchester

325 Central Avenue

White Plains, NY 10606

Program:  Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA)

Excelsior College

2000 M Street NW, Suite 500

Washington, DC 20036

Program: Masters of Business Administration (MBA)

Pepperdine University

24255 Pacific Coast Highway

Malibu, CA 90263

Program:  Masters of Business Administration (MBA)

Funding

A question that is commonly asked among the start-up world is “How will I get the money for this?” Unfortunately (in most cases) there is not going to be a line of investors at your door waiting to pour money into your idea.  If you are serious about trying to acquire funding, the first step is to design an elevator pitch that will leave funders wanting to hear more. However, the problem in today’s business world is a new business’s ability to gain an approval of a standard business loan from a bank. Regardless of how great your pitch is, most lenders require a loan recipient to sign personal guarantees that can tie the loan to specific assets within the business; covering the loan provider if the business does not succeed. While this can be a great option to a large business with many assets, it will more than likely not be available to a small business that is just starting out. Fortunately, there are a number of alternate funding options available now – due to these lending restrictions.

Alternate lending is a fairly new option that has arisen within the business world over the last few years. This type of funding is made available in a variety of different forms, but two of the more common forms are through unsecured loans from private lenders and/or utilizing crowdfunding sources to fund a business’s start-up journey. Either way, alternative lending is a great (for lack of a better word) “alternative” to the traditional business loans of the past.

Tools To Use 

SBA’s Loan and Grant Search Tool: SBA offers this tool to small businesses. This tool enables you to search government financing programs available to help you start and expand your business.

Marketing

Marketing is essential to the life and well-being of a small business – especially in the time we live in. Marketing is ultimately a way your business can expand the reach of its brand and ensure you that anyone who should be aware of your businesses is aware of your business. Thanks to the internet, you are granted a large amount of online guides to assist your marketing ploys, but you must ensure you are utilizing them to their full potential.

In the world of marketing there are many tactics a business can use, and it is important that you verify who you are trying to market to. After you have established a group of individuals to target, your next step is to analyze that demographic to come up with the best tactic to deploy a successful marketing campaign to them.

–          Who do my services cater to?

–          Where are these individuals looking for services?

–          How can I show these individuals that my services are the best option?

These are all questions you should be asking yourself when constructing a marketing campaign, however, a great starting point in the marketing world is to make sure you are readily available on social media. Chances are a majority of your targeted community will be active on social media and this will allow you to engage with your community on a personal level and spread awareness of your existence throughout the industry. However, before you dive into a social media campaign, it is important to be sure you are using social media in a way that will benefit your business. Be sure that you are providing useful information within the community, participate in twitter chats, and ensure you will be able to provide any answers your community may have for you.  Once you have this under your belt, you can explore further marketing techniques.

Tools To Use 

Followerwonk: Followerwonk is an app provided by Moz.com. Followerwonk allows a user to search for specific keywords included in Twitter bios. This can allow you to find influencers in social media and put your services in front of them.

Buzzsumo: Buzzsumo is a great content marketing tool. Buzzsumo allows you to search for niche-specific keywords and will bring up the top pieces of content in that niche. This will allow you to analyze your target niche and create content that they will want to read and share.

About the Author

Taylor Tomita is a creative writer residing in Boise, Idaho. With his large range of interests, he often is writing with the hopes of informing readers on news and updates throughout the business world. When not writing (or trying to survive the frigid Idaho winters) you can usually find Taylor creating music or talking about his giant cat.