We may earn a small commission if you click links and make a purchase. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
Last Updated on October 29, 2023
Do you have a great business ideas but don’t know how to turn it into reality?
The primary reason people get stuck in the brainstorming stage is that they don’t know what to do about it.
Starting a business takes energy and time. One must also undergo periods of prolonged self-reflection to find a realistic and viable business idea.
Better yet, if you already have a promising idea, how will you be certain that it will blossom into a successful business? And that’s why early planning stages are vital.
Avoid skimping on brainstorming, and try this out.
Follow Your Passions to Ensure You Reach Your Business Goals
Do you have a big dream or goal that will bring significant impact to a certain industry (e.g. starting a new technology company, selling your fashion designs on Etsy, or writing a book)?
Then, it’s safe to assume that you’re passionate about the actual activity or have some experience invested in it.
If the ultimate goal is to do what you truly desire, then you should be passionate about what you’re going to do enough to take it to another level.
During the first time taking on this new venture, you need to keep asking yourself whether you’re ready to love it this much — enough to consider learning other unrelated skills.
People accomplish more and are more motivated when they truly love what they’re doing, so ensure it’s worthwhile.
Visualize Your Goal With as Much Detail as Possible
Take a moment to indulge yourself in fantasy, and try visualizing your goal in rich detail.
In other words, the clearer you may see what success looks like for you, then the more achievable your goals are.
Unfortunately, our minds are often swimming in negative thoughts of constant comparisons to others.
In such moments, you must remind yourself of the victories you can taste and fill your heart with the positivity you were full of when you started.
Research, Create a Strategy, and Reduce It Into Actionable Steps
Trying to have a better idea of what’s ahead is essential. Look for people or companies who have accomplished similar projects, talk to experts or map out what it might mean for you to get to where you’d like to go.
That means researching a wide range of fields, such as social engine marketing or business and finance.
Once you have a clear idea of what your goal involves, reduce your strategy into small, actionable steps.
Start a Daily Routine or Reorganize Your Routine
Doing the actual work is the most crucial part of realizing your dream. You can’t find any successful person who hasn’t done the hard work in one way or another.
So if you’re truly serious about your objective and you have a strategy to handle it, you’ll need to work at it daily.
Whether it’s getting up several hours earlier to read a few chapters or dedicating enough time after work to dive into your goals, you should stop framing them as “an idea” or a “dream project”.
Once you’ve decided to chase your dream, it automatically stops being just a dream and turns out to work.
Get Into a Growth Mindset
Once you believe that your big dream is an opportunity to discover more and make your skills better, you’ll be more inspired to go on reaching above and beyond whatever you’d set out to do.
Those who believe that skill and intelligence level is a fixed quantity often quit and use their lack of intelligence or aptitude as an excuse not to keep going.
On the other hand, people who adopt a growth mindset have a higher likelihood to keep traveling down the road to success.
They know that every goal, every obstacle, and every challenge is an opportunity to learn more and improve personal growth.
Realize your setbacks and challenges now and understand that there will always be setbacks and challenges — but that you can fix these issues.
If you can tell yourself that you can overcome this situation and learn from it, then you’ll have a much-increased potential for growth and success when it comes to your next big idea.
HOW TO START A BUSINESS FROM SCRATCH
Perhaps you’ve already established your idea and want to learn the basic steps of starting up a new business. Instead of guessing where to start, the following checklist should transform your business idea into a real entity.
1. Clarify Your Idea
If you’ve been thinking about starting your business online, you must already have a clue of what you’d like to sell or at least the market you’d like to enter.
Do an in-depth search for existing companies in your preferred industry. Try learning what brand leaders are currently doing and find out how you could do it better.
If you’ve got a solid idea, or you think your business will deliver something other businesses don’t (or perhaps deliver the same thing, but faster and cheaper), then you’re ready to create a business plan. But first,
- Define your “why”
It’s good to know exactly why you’re launching your business.
And in this process, it would be prudent to differentiate between [whether] your business serves a marketplace why or a personal why.
If your why aims at meeting a specific need in the marketplace, then your business’ scope will always be larger than a business that’s formed to serve a personal need.
- Think about franchising
Opening a franchise of an established company is another considerable option. The concept, business model and are already in place. Besides a good location, you’ll also need the means to fund your project.
- Brainstorm your business name
Irrespective of which choice you pick, you must understand the reasoning behind your chosen idea. Business experts caution entrepreneurs against brainstorming a business name or writing a business plan before nailing down their idea’s value.
- Determine your target customers
People often jump into starting their business without taking the time to ponder who their customers will be.
You need to be certain why you’d like to work with these customers. Do you enjoy creating art to add color to the world, or are you passionate about making people’s lives easier?
Identifying these answers will assist to clarify your mission. You also want to define how you’ll deliver this value to your customers and effective ways to communicate that value so that they’re willing to pay.
During the ideation phase, you’ll have to iron out the main details.
In case there’s no market for your creation or the idea isn’t something you’re passionate about, then it may be time to brainstorm other ideas.
2. Write a Business Plan
If you already have an idea in place, you’ll need to ask yourself some important questions.
What’s the purpose of the business? What are your end goals? Who are you selling to? How will you fund your startup costs?
You can answer these questions in a well-written business plan.
Most mistakes are usually made by new businesses jumping into things without considering these critical aspects of the business. You got to establish your target customer base.
Who will purchase your product or service?
If you cannot find proof that there’s a demand for your particular idea, then there’s no point to actualize it.
- Do market research
Doing in-depth market research on your chosen field and the demographics of prospective clients is a fundamental element of crafting a business plan. It entails performing surveys, researching SEO & public data, and holding focus groups.
Market research assists you to understand your target customer – i.e. their needs, behavior, and preferences – as well as your chosen industry and competitors. Most small business experts recommend collecting demographic info and undertaking a comprehensive analysis to understand limitations and opportunities within their market better.
Ideal small businesses usually have products and/or services that are distinguished from the competition. Generally, this has a huge impact on your competitive landscape and lets you convey unique value to prospective clients.
- Consider an exit strategy
It would also be smart to think about an exit strategy when compiling your business plan. Creating some idea of how you’ll exit the business later on forces you to focus on the future.
In most cases, new entrepreneurs tend to be so excited about their start-ups and so certain everyone will be a customer that they provide minimal if any, time to show a good plan on leaving the business.
A business plan primarily assists you to establish where your business is going, what you need to sustain it, and how it will overcome any potential obstacles.
3. Evaluate Your Finances
Since starting any business has a cost, you need to figure out how you’ll cover those costs. Will you need to borrow money or do you have the means to finance your startup?
If you’re considering leaving your present job to prioritize your company, do you have money set aside to support yourself until the profits start to roll in?
It would help to identify how much you’ll need for startup costs.
Most startups fail primarily because they run out of funds before making a profit. It would even be best to overestimate the total amount of startup capital you require since it can take a while before your business starts to bring in sustainable revenue.
- Conduct a break-even analysis
Performing a break-even analysis is one effective way you can figure out how much money you need.
It’s a vital element of financial planning that assists business owners and investors to determine when their business, service, or product will be profitable.
- Be smart with your expenses
Avoid overspending when starting your business.
Take time to understand the kinds of purchases that make sense for your company and don’t overspend on stylish new equipment that won’t help you achieve your business goals.
Always monitor your business expenses to make sure you’re staying on track.
More often than not, startups spend money on unnecessary items.
It’s no surprise to find a startup that has three employees but has spent a massive amount on office space that can fit 30 people.
They might have also leased a professional high-end printer that is more suited for a team of 200, which consists of key cards to monitor who was printing what and when.
Try spending as little as possible when you begin, and only on the items that are vital for the business to grow and be successful.
Luxuries may come when you’re fully established.
4. Identify Your Legal Business Structure
The first thing you need to do before registering your company is to decide what type of entity it is. In general, your business structure legally influences everything including how you file your taxes, and even your liability in case something went wrong.
Your company can fall into various groups, including:
- Sole proprietorship
If you fully own the business and plan to be accountable for all obligations and debts, you may register for a sole proprietorship. But be warned that this choice can directly affect your credit.
- Partnership
As its name suggests, a business partnership means that two or more individuals are held personally responsible as business owners.
So you don’t have to do it alone if you could find a business partner offering complementary skills to yours.
It’s often a good idea to work with someone to help your business thrive.
- Corporation
If you’d like your liability to be separated from your company’s liability, you might want to consider forming a different type of corporation (such as an S corporation, B corporation, or C corporation).
Each type of corporation comes with different guidelines, but this legal structure usually makes a company a separate entity from its owners. As such, corporations may own property, pay taxes, get contracts, assume liability, sue, and be sued just like any other individual.
Furthermore, corporations, particularly C corporations, are a suitable option for new businesses that consider ‘going public’ or seeking financing from venture capitalists.
- Limited liability company
The limited liability company (LLC) is one of the most popular structures when it comes to small businesses. Typically, this hybrid structure consists of a corporation’s legal protections while enabling the tax benefits of a partnership.
All in all, it’s entirely up to you to identify which form of entity is best suited for your present requirements and future business goals.
You must also learn about the different legal business structures available. And if you’re having difficulties making up your mind, it would help to discuss the decision with a legal or business advisor.
5. Brand Yourself & Advertise
Before you begin selling your product or service, you should build up your brand and gather a following of people willing to jump once you open your figurative or literal doors for business.
So, what should you do?
- Company website
First, you need to take your reputation online by building a company website. Most customers go to the internet to discover more about a business. As a result, a website serves as online proof that a small business exists.
It’s also an effective method of engaging with present and prospective customers.
- Social media
Utilize social media platforms to advertise your new business, probably as a promotional tool to provide discounts and coupons to followers after you launch. The ideal social media platforms to use will rely on your target audience.
- Logo
Design a logo that can assist people to easily recognize your brand, and maintain consistency in using it throughout your platforms.
- CRM
An ideal CRM software solution enables you to store customer information to improve how you generally market to them. A carefully-planned email marketing campaign will do wonders when it comes to reaching customers and interacting with your audience. And to be successful, you’ll need to strategically create your email marketing contact list.
Furthermore, you should keep these digital assets updated with interesting and relevant content about your specific business and industry.
Business professionals claim that too many startups don’t have the right mindset about their websites.
And the main issue is that they see their site as a cost, and not an investment. In today’s digital age, this is a huge mistake. Small business owners who know how vital it is to have a solid online presence will ensure they start strong.
In general, creating a marketing plan that surpasses your launch is imperative to building a clientele by constantly spreading the word about your business.
And this procedure – specifically in the beginning – is equally as important as offering a high-quality product or service.
Conclusion: Take Action
Many people have big business ideas, but only a small percentage of those follow through on them. Avoid letting fear or perfectionism get in the way.
By taking small steps and being methodical, you’ll be able to sustain momentum and ultimately be successful. Celebrate vital milestones along your way.
Focus on constantly making your product or service better.
Most importantly, you need to believe in yourself!
You must have a senseless belief in yourself and your specific idea —nearly to the point of being delusional. Don’t forget that although everyone has advice, nobody knows what you must go through to start, develop and scale a business unless they’ve lived it.
Action speaks volumes!
References
- https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/322645
- https://www.thebalancesmb.com/what-to-do-with-ideas-for-business-1200673#toc-3-draft-a-business-plan
- https://businesscollective.com/how-to-actualize-your-next-big-business-idea/index.html
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinecastrillon/2019/12/08/how-to-turn-your-business-idea-into-reality/
- https://www.companywizard.co.uk/blog/i-want-to-start-a-business-but-dont-know-where-to-begin
- https://www.sba.gov/business-guide/10-steps-start-your-business
- https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/4686-how-to-start-a-business.html
- https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/how-to-start-a-business
