Get started with a business - Startup journal - Week 3

One thing I got asked many times is: "How do I start a business cheaply and quick?".
My usual answer is, "become self-employed, start a blog, in short build a business around your name".

But what about a big gigantic cute little business with a legal entity and something to sell? You know the one with which you can lower your tax bill if you are doing it smart.

It is, in fact, easier to start then you think.

First, a small reminder that this is not an easy road. Most businesses fail in their first 3 years of existence and the percentage of those businesses is a whopping 95%.

Still interested? I hope so, then as an entrepreneur, your dreams could become true.

You surely would like to know how to squeeze into those shy 5%. To be honest, this isn't the point of this post. And I couldn't tell you how to become guaranteed successful because my time on this planet isn't enough to gain such insight myself.

You may hesitate now to take the risk, because of missing information, fear of failure, or a wrong anticipation of what is needed to get started.

But I assume you are a risk taker. As we both are hanging around on Steemit. So let's just dive in, with the first obvious question!

What could someone do to get ahead with his/her idea and his/her product/service?

What idea??? What product??? I don't have one! And before I'm going any further you would like to remind me that you are also tight on money.

Brainstorm Ideas

So let's tackle the idea hurdle at first.

1. It doesn't have to be innovative. It could be a totally boring everyday idea, which you try to improve and serve better than anybody else.
2. Write down on a piece of paper things that bother you on your daily routine. This are things that make great products.
3. Write down things that you don't like and inverse it to make something you would like.
4. Write down your skills.

Time to bake your idea into something real:

• Combine,
• Reduce,
• Add,
• Minimize,
• Maximize,
• Substitute

This is where you can get creative. Maybe it will take time, but it is totally worth it. You could differentiate in every aspect of your service/product, even on how you would ask your customers to pay for it.

Research

Find out with a simple internet search which competitors are out there that serve a similar idea with yours and look what you could do better, how you could differentiate and offer greater value to your future customers.

Having competition is a good sign, which shows there could be a profit margin. Where a profit margin is, there is also money. Additional do also a keyword search (with Adwords Keyword-tool for example) to define if the keywords of your business have value, so you can avoid the pitfall of doing a business where paying customers are non-existent.

Start

Start from any given point, it doesn't matter where you start, just make the first step.

• Search and get a domain name,
• Create a logo,
• Came up with a business slogan,
• Write your first line of code,
• Sketch your idea,
• Read a how-to book about businesses.

Budget

Estimate how much money you can put right away in your business and how much you would need to save in the upcoming future or how you aim to get capital.

Set up a table with the most important needs of your business and allocate the resources within your budget.

For example, you need a logo. You could create one yourself, you could use an online logo creator, hire someone on Fiverr for 5 bucks, hire a more experienced remote cheap designer, or go to a local design studio with a great reputation for creating logos and a brand story.

Persevere

Keep it going. Dedicate time to make progress in your endeavor. Approach your goal in small steps and don't overwhelm yourself at the beginning.
You are aiming at avoiding failure, not in making a world record in starting a business.

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