Everyone that has the intention of starting their very own business must ask the right questions, and answer them, before they can start anything. Questions are really helpful in helping us understand what we need to do in life. In regard to business, they help us stay on the right track, and decide what needs to be done, and what should be avoided.
To Start a Business, Start Asking the Right Questions
Deciding on the business will help you figure out how quickly you will be able to turn a profit once you begin and what you’ll be doing with your time. This is why it’s so important that it be something you love or are extremely interested and curious about.
The Myth of Needing to Have the Next Big Thing/Idea
Why is your idea unique? Sadly, your idea might be mostly unique, but it is always going to be influenced in some way by other ideas. This is particularly true for web based businesses. Most of the time, if you do a simple search, you’ll find websites that have your idea already out in the open.
Something that has never been done before – this is not something you should focus on creating. What you want to do is put a twist or spin on something that is already out there, which will have a higher probability of bringing you success. This is what makes your idea unique. Training dogs, for example, is something everyone can do.
Deciding on a unique way of training the dogs is how you come up with something unique. Which market am I going to be targeting? You should probably decide this early on in the process. Once you understand who your target market is, you will then know how to structure your business the right way. And if you didn’t know, your target market is identical to the target demographic.
These are interchangeable terms regardless of what you sell or do. Maybe you have a dog product, and you are selling it to chicken lovers. This simply isn’t going to work. So if you place a few ads about a retirement vacation home, you don’t want to target single moms with a couple kids. You understand right?
If you can grow one orange tree, you can grow an entire grove.
You Don’t Need Lots of Startup Capital
Unless you are already profitable and have a successful model that you’ll then just need to figure out how to scale up, you may be tempted to get startup capital or a business loan.
This could be handy at least seemingly at first, but really, you should focus on turning a profit, even if the profit is only pennies on the dollar. Don’t be tempted to rollover your 401(k) into business start-up capital unless you’re already profitable or your idea is so unstoppable that Steve Jobs would be climbing out of his grave to help you make it happen.
My YouTube channel consistently makes enough to afford my total grocery bill every month. That all started when I discovered I was making a few cents a day from a random video I uploaded while working at an advertising agency to my YouTube channel. I then scaled the concept out and it became an income stream. It was all based on a little theory, a very cheap initial investment (the video cost me $10 to have made), and some time, but then I had discovered a profitable business model, even though it’s small (it’s one stream I fish in 🙂 ).
Once you start making money, then you’ll need a bookkeeper.
How am I going to handle my finances? Obviously if you have the money you might want to hire an accountant. This is something that you may not have the money for, however. So before you ever begin making a single dime, you need to know how to track your expenditures and your income. Having all of your money deposited into a personal bank account is simply not going to help you.
Actually, you might find yourself in deep water with the IRS. You might want to try books on finance and accounting, reading those before you start your business. Then set up your tracking system and stick to it.
Starting a new business requires you to make a variety of important decisions. This is just as true for web based businesses as it is for offline businesses. The above questions are well worth spending some time with if you want your business to succeed. As you move forward, you’ll discover plenty of other questions as well!
