Most people think that starting a business means buying a storefront, investing hundreds of thousands of dollars and creating a full-fledged startup corporation. While this is one way to do it, some of the biggest businesses in the world, including Google, Amazon and Apple, have been started by people working out of their homes. Here are four of the things you’ll need to do to start a business from your garage or basement.
Start With a Great Business Plan
Whether you plan to sell handmade craft projects or want to start a cybersecurity business, you’ll need a solid plan for exactly what your business will do, how it will run and how you’ll make money from it. Since you’ll be running your business from home to start with and probably won’t have any employees, your business plan needs to take into account the fact that you’ll be doing the vast majority of the work to start. It should, however, also include a long-term growth plan, as your goal should eventually be to reach a point where you can hire employees and increase your volume of work.
In addition to a plan, you also need to have a great product or service. Remember, customer relations ultimately come down to quality. If you can offer a product or service that’s better than your competition, your business will ultimately succeed in the free marketplace. If, on the other hand, you jump in before perfecting what you plan to sell, you’ll find it hard to make a good living in your new business.
Focus on High-leverage Marketing
If you’re operating out of your garage or basement, you probably won’t have many opportunities for customers to come directly to your location. That being said, it’s important that you use high-leverage online marketing channels to get your product or service seen by the masses. Some good ways to market your business online without having to spend an inordinate amount of money include social media marketing through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and video marketing through YouTube. Also be sure that you have a website set up before you begin selling, as you’ll need somewhere to send the traffic from these channels in order to convert it into paying customers.
Keep Your Business Space Organized
Just because you’re running your business from your garage or basement doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t treat that space like a real business headquarters. Be sure to keep it carefully organized, as you’ll otherwise waste valuable time looking for supplies or trying to remember where you set something down. Even if you live in a smaller home, you can maximize your work space with good organization to ensure that your business runs smoothly.
Explore New Opportunities
Once your business has reached a certain level of success, you should consider expanding it by exploring different opportunities in your niche. Say, for example, you were offering social media marketing services online. A logical way to expand your business would be to begin offering content or video creation services that would help your clients connect with broader audiences. If you can offer more products or services, you will almost certainly make more money. Be careful, however, not to overextend yourself, as you don’t want to work yourself to exhaustion by trying to do too many things at once.
Building a small business in your home may sound difficult, but if you have a good business plan, a good product or service and the willingness to work hard, you will be able to do it. Just because you’re working from a garage or basement doesn’t mean that your business is not a real one, so continue to work on it, and you’ll see it grow until it meets your goals.