If you have finally made the decision to start building a new business (whether it is your first business ever or one of many that came before it), it can be an extremely frightening proposition. Your continued (and eventual) success has a lot to do with whether you lay the foundation properly from the beginning.
How do you start?
If you are at the point where you are ready to start a new business, it is safe to assume that you have a unique, exciting idea. At least, that is what you know to be the fact. The reality is that you cannot be the only person who believes in your idea. You must get other people to believe in it as well. An important part of that concept is having a really clear understanding of how your concept will fit into the grand scheme of things. You must have no doubt about how you will fit into the market. Obviously, that is critical because if you can’t answer that question, you will be finished even before you have had a chance to begin. You need to be able to understand why your customers would want and need to acquire your products and/or services. Do your potential and existing customers really need what you are selling and will your offerings really make a significant contribution? You need to look carefully at your idea (as objectively as you possibly can) and try to determine if it is really worthy of centering your startup around. The answer is not necessarily obvious.
Get really close to your target audience
Whether you realize it or not, the minute you begin to interact with the members of your target audience, there exists an unspoken agreement between you. The agreement that you have between you is that you will make every attempt possible to solve the other person’s problem(s). If you are able to accomplish that, you will succeed at forming a relationship with that person and, hopefully, that bond will last for a very long time. That is what you can do for the other person. What the other person can do for you is to provide you with the other perspective, which can be extremely valuable. You may not be able to obtain that perspective from anyone else. It is very important for you to remember not to attempt (in any way) to do a “hard sell.” If you do, you will not achieve the results that you are hoping for and it will truly be an exercise in futility.
Choose the name of your startup very carefully
The name of your startup company must be perfect. It must be a name that other people will remember and it must represent your business extremely well. Based on your startup company’s name, other people should have absolutely no doubt about what you are offering and what you can do for them. Additionally, the name of your business will be critical to search engine optimization. When a person is searching for products and/or services, you want your business to appear at the very top of the search engine’s results page.
Pay close attention to your Return on Investment (ROI)
Although you are working hard at building relationships with people and not “selling,” that doesn’t mean that your ultimate goal is not to sell your products and/or services ultimately. Of course, you want that. That is exactly what everyone wants. In fact, it is the reason that you formed your startup business in the first place. That doesn’t mean that you are not passionate about what you are offering. It just means that you value what you are offering and feel that you deserve to be compensated for those offerings. Those are not unreasonable expectations.
Test the waters first
It is a very good idea to check out the reaction that people might have to the concept of your startup before you actually go through the entire process of establishing the company. It is kind of like the concept of testing a cleaning fluid on a new garment. You wouldn’t use the fluid on the entire garment initially. First, you would test a corner of the garment. Once you see that the fluid is safe and works well, you can use it on the rest of the garment. Some risks are worth taking and some are not.