subject: Three Steps To Starting A New Business [print this page] Thinking of starting a new business? This is understandably an attractive idea to consider. With your own gig going on, you'll get the benefit of managing your own time and pace. Before you dive into the details though, there are some crucial steps you need to keep in mind and follow to make the experience truly worth your while.
#1- Perform an interest and aptitude check.
The first real piece of advice you should take is to follow your passion. It takes a great deal of hard work and time to get entrepreneurial ventures rolling. Hence you should rather set up something that you'd love to work on. You don't want to have to force yourself to get up to work. The ideal motivation to stay up long hours working is your love for what you're doing.
Take note though that the basic steps to starting a new business also involves checking your aptitude. You may be very interested in a market or topic but you might not actually even have the basic technical aptitude to convince people that you are an authority in your market and someone who's worth following.
#2- Go into market research.
Another vital point that many new entrepreneurs miss is market research. It's all well and good to identify what you love to do but you need to find out first if there is an actual market for it. You may for instance love cross stitching and would like to try to make money out of this hobby. You need to find out first though if there are people in your region who might want to shell out cash for the hobby.
Basic market research comes in the form of a feasibility study. You can however also take a slightly informal approach by conducting surveys and interviews. In addition, you can access statistical data that is already available in government statistics agencies regarding demographics and local population interests.
#3- Do competition research as well.
Researching about the competition is another important step to starting a new business and goes hand in hand with market research. Find out who you're up against and how big and stable these competitors are. You might not be able to break out if you're going head to head with brand name companies that are already firmly established.
Just in case you do find out that a market already has tough competition in it, don't immediately abandon all hope. An additional tip would be to drill deep into your market of choice. If the market of your choice is too big, look for a niche and then a micro niche in it. A big market for instance is crafts. A niche within it would be cross stitching. A micro niche would be wedding cross stitching. Similar examples exist for a variety of other markets.
There are many other vital tips to starting a new business. These three however are the most essential ones that you need to tackle first before you implement any idea. Get these three steps wrong and you will either fail or have a very hard time keeping your entrepreneurial venture afloat.
