Does this sound familiar? You’re gazing out of the window from your cubicle daydreaming about walking out and starting the business that you’re really passionate about. What’s holding you back? Most commonly, it’s the fear and anxiety associated with the “unknown”. Will your business thrive? Will you end up losing it all and regretting the whole process? Sure, there are a lot of lingering questions that might cause some tension and anxiety, but you can align yourself with companies like CBDfx and keep “cool” through the whole process. After all, you can’t really focus and make things happen if you’re all wound up! This element of the unknown can be very scary, but if you do your research and follow these simple steps, you can start that passion project and never look back!
Step 1
Your first step falls into the research category. Sure, you have an idea for a business, but you need to make sure it’s feasible. So, you’ll need to do some market research to find out if there is a need for your product, who needs it, and how you’ll go about providing this good or service while differentiating yourself from the competition.
Step 2
The next phase is planning. This is where you take all that market research, utilize it to make a plan, and lay it all out on paper. Making a business plan can become overwhelming because some business plans are super detailed and can go up to 50 pages or even more! But you can always just start with a simple one-page plan to get your basic ideas on paper and elaborate later, or even hire someone to go a little more in detail for you. If you plan on trying to get funding from the bank for your company they will definitely want to see a solid business plan.
Step 3
Next, you’ll want to dive into the finances. You’ll need to figure out how much your initial investment will be, how much you’ll have to spend to acquire the products needed to get your business off the ground, and also how much you will price your goods or services at so you’re actually making a profit. Some other starting expenses that you need to be mindful of are property leases, trademarking, business license fees, insurance, branding, and even more. A great way to keep up with your financials is to use a spreadsheet. You can keep count of how much you paid for certain products and how much that equates to for each item individually by dividing the total price paid by the number of individual items you received for that price. This is another element you’ll have to dig into a little bit because there are a few different approaches to effectively pricing your goods and/or services.
Step 4
Now that you’ve got all the formalities out fo the way, you need to decide on the business and domain name. Honestly, this is one of the hardest things to do because your business name has to be able to catch attention, and most importantly, it has to be available! It’s very annoying when you think you’ve found the perfect name but it’s taken! If you run into this problem, you can try getting creative with the spelling….but not too creative or people might pass you by on the web. Once you settle on a domain and business name, you can look into getting your name trademarked. This is an important step a lot of people overlook thinking they can just do it later. That is fine, but make sure to come back to it because you don’t want to pour all that hard work and money into a business name for someone else to come in and swoop it up.
Step 5
Now that you’ve set up your business name and domain, you can create social media accounts. Social media is a huge asset that you don’t want to miss out on. Believe it or not, some companies thrive completely off of social media and make good money doing so! You can also look into hiring a digital marketing company to make sure your online presence is really out there and you’re making the most out of that presence!
Step 6
At this point, you’re basically ready to go. If you need to hire employees, you can do that at this point and really start to get into the motion of running your own business. It is a continuous grind, especially in the beginning because you are kind of like the one-man or one-woman show that wears multiple hats until you get things moving in a certain direction.
Step 7
You’re an official business owner now with a fully functioning business, but it doesn’t stop here! Owning a business is a non-stop grind and there is always something that needs to be done. You’ll always need to be doing market research, social media work, finding events that will get your business out there—but hey—you’re not in that cubicle anymore and you’re living your dream! Congratulations, you made it happen!