12-Step Guide to Starting a Business

🌱 EVALUATE YOURSELF
What skills do you have? Where does your passion lie? Where is your area of expertise? How much can you afford to spend, knowing that most businesses fail? How much capital do you need? 

What sort of lifestyle do you want to live?

Are you even ready to be an entrepreneur?

🌱 THINK OF A BUSINESS IDEA
Do you already have a killer business idea? If so, congratulations! You can proceed to the next section. If not, there are a ton of ways to start brainstorming for a good idea. Go out and meet people and ask them questions, seek advice from other entrepreneurs, research ideas online or use whatever method makes the most sense to you.

🌱 DO MARKET RESEARCH
Is anyone else already doing what you want to start doing? If not, is there a good reason why? Start researching your potential rivals or partners within the market 

🌱 CREATE A DEMO SERVICE AND WATCH THE FEEDBACK
Let people interact with your product or service and see what their take is on it. A fresh set of eyes can help point out a problem you might have missed. Plus, these people will become your first brand advocates, especially if you listen to their input and they like the product.

🌱 MAKE IT OFFICIAL
Get all of the legal aspects out of the way early. That way, you don't have to worry about someone taking your big idea, screwing you over in a partnership or suing you for something you never saw coming.

Read also : Why small business(startups) fail .

🌱 WRITE YOUR BUSINESS PLAN
A business plan is a written description of how your business will evolve from when it starts to the finish product. You might just be lucky to meet an angel investor. 

🌱CAPITAL/FINANCING YOUR BUSINESS
There are several ways to fund your business: ranging from self-funding either by saving up, pitch your needs to friends and family, request a small business grant from the government through the BOI, start a crowdfunding campaign online, solicit Venture Capital investors or meet with angel investors.

🌱 DEVELOP YOUR PRODUCT/SERVICE
After all the work you have into starting your business, it is going to feel awesome to actually see your idea come to life. But keep in mind that it takes a village to create a product.

🌱 BUILD YOUR TEAM
This is very important "it takes a village to build a product".
To scale your business, you will need to hand off some responsibilities to other people.

🌱 FIND A FAVORABLE AND ACCESSIBLE LOCATION.
This could mean an office or a store, for sure, priorities wil 

Read also : why over funding can kill a startup.

Will defer depending on need

A few important points when starting a business

🎈When starting a business, it is important to solve a problem no one else has solved. Or provide a service more efficiently than anyone else. If you do not have that, you will struggle. 

🎈If the goal of your business is ultimately profit, demand should dictate majority of what you do. Not your personal sentiments. 

🎈Understand the industry you are getting into, who the major players are,and consumer tendencies. Understanding these things will save you a lot of money. 

🎈It’s fine to make mistakes, everyone does. But if you don’t learn from them and make adjustments, you’re on your own oh! 

Read also : Four things you need to do as a leader of a startup business.

🎈If you will not launch until your product /service is perfect. You will never launch. One of the ways to make it better is by launching and getting live feedback from customers 

🎈Remember that just because customers like your product today, does not mean that they will like it tomorrow. 

🎈There is absolutely no substitute for hard work, you do not need to be the hardest worker ever, but you cannot attain a sustainable level of success without working hard. 

🎈When you start off, only partner with people you need and can add value, not people you like. Do not add people you can do without. 

🎈Avoid trying to emulate exceptions to rules. There is usually a lot of luck involved in their story they might not tell you about. 

Read also : How to become a Permanent Resident in Canada through business or entrepreneur category.

🎈When you have ideas, write them down instantly, can be anywhere, in your phone, tissue paper, etc. Just make a habit of getting thoughts down on paper. 

🎈Your idea is not a business. Coming up with an idea is extremely easy, anyone can do it. It’s all about execution. 

🎈When your business starts bringing in consistent revenue remember that managing that cash is extremely important. Can you expand? Can you invest it? Make strategic acquisitions? Can you increase efficiency?

🌱 WORK ON GETTING MORE SALES
🌱 GROW YOUR BUSINESS
🌱 KEEP SHARING THIS. Thanks 🦉 

Read also : 36 Things I have Learned in Building An eCommerce Business.