Where to start when starting a business?
A question I often get from our audience is ‘where to start and what to focus on when starting a business?’
Plenty of people have good ideas for starting a business, almost everyone I know has one. But one of the biggest barriers people face when trying to make their ideas a reality is how to know if their idea will work?
The truth is, you won’t know exactly how it will work and perhaps the initial idea you had at the beginning won’t be the one that does work in the end. But there are things that you can do to put yourself in the best possible position to launch with a good idea—here’s what you need to know—
What problem are you solving? A successful business model requires more than just a good idea. You’ll also need paying customers who are willing and able to buy from you. Before you start, figure out who those people are, what they need and how much they are prepared to pay you for the solution that you are going to offer them.
Test it before you invest in it— Often the early planning stages of starting a business can be the most exciting. There’s little to no risk of failure as yet and you haven’t had to face the fear of going public with your idea so the confidence levels are high. But staying too long in the planning stage puts you at risk of your idea being formed in a vacuum. Without an outside opinion or external feedback from an unbiased coach/mentor or a potential paying customer your idea could be harbouring flaws that you can’t see. Before you go all in on your idea, employ someone to help you flesh out your idea and test it in real life before you go to market. It will reduce the risk when you do launch and ensure that your time and energy is best spent on the tasks that will set you up for success.
Plan while you can— Once you do go live there will be a never ending list of things you’ll need to do to run your business, from marketing, backend management, sales and admin. I always recommend to my coaching clients to set up their websites, branding, socials, mailing lists and content plans as soon as possible. Things will get busy quickly so if you can plan in advance and outsource what’s keeping you stuck you’ll be better prepared for maintaining your business and energy levels when things start to kick off. Our Marketing 101 ebook & workbook can help you with this.
Happy starting!
Get in touch for 1:1 business coaching.
K
kaylene@startupcreative.com.au
