Launching or starting a new business is a very exciting time; there is so much happening and going on, even behind the scenes, that it can be hard to contain your excitement and anticipation. When you are looking at launching a new, cool or innovative idea, there are areas that you will want to focus on to ensure that you get things right from the start. So, where do you start? What should be your first job on your to-do list?
What is Your New Business Idea?
So, just what is your idea, and how did it come about? How well have you researched your idea, and do you know if there is a market or audience for what you want to do? Asking tough and possibly difficult questions early in the process will help you establish where you need to focus your efforts, which will save you time and energy. When thinking about your business idea, think about how clear it is. Can your idea be explained in a short elevator pitch or not? If your idea cannot be explained in a few seconds, then it may be time to head back to the drawing board to iron out and tweak your offering.
Being as Social as You Can
Social media is huge and shows no signs of slowing down. Embracing social media early on in your business is a way of meeting customers and target audiences cost-effectively and quickly. Using various social media platforms will ensure that you can reach your potential customers, communicate with them efficiently and effectively, and gather useful feedback.
Who Is Your Target Market?
You don’t need to know their names, of course, but knowing who you want to reach is essential to the running and success of any sized business. If you just launch your new idea without any real idea as to who your audience or target market is, then you will be left bitterly disappointed when sales don’t hit the numbers you were expecting. Spending time before your launch to fully establish who your customers are, and where they are will put you in good stead and will help you focus your marketing and communication efforts.
Developing a Sound Business Plan
Business plans can sound old and stuffy, but they are not if they are done correctly. A sound business plan will lay out what is happening where and when, and it will also lay out who your competitors are, how much profit you want to be making, and plans you hold for the future. A sound business plan that is well researched and well put together will provide a blueprint to which you can work on and from for at least the next 12 months.
How Will You Reach Your New Audience?
Have you thought about how exactly you will reach your new target market or audience? If you haven’t started to think about what action you will take, then now is the time. Knowing how you will reach your audience will save you time and hassle, so when you are putting together your business plan, take some time out to research just what exactly your target read, listen and watch, and most importantly, how they respond and react to a variety of marketing campaigns and activities. Once you have established how to get their response, you can then begin to focus on creating marketing literature and material, whether in-house or externally.
Is Your Business Idea or Innovation Stable and Sustainable?
When you get ready to hit the go button on your business, you need to establish just how sustainable and stable it will be. Will you need to rely heavily on others in the supply chain, or can you get by on relying on as few middlemen as possible. You also need to think about how sustainable your business offering or innovation is. If products and formats are not sustainable, then you may have problems in the future.
Future-Proofing Your New Business
When you are looking at the stability and sustainability of your new business or innovation, you also need to think about how future proof your offering is going to be. For example, when you look at the covid situation, nobody could have ever predicted just how monumental the changes were and how much they would affect everyone. If business intelligence covid would have been undertaken, then the damage done to businesses of all sizes might not have been so detrimental or long-lasting. Future-proofing your business and your ideas is about putting plans into place for as many eventualities as you can think of. Preparing for the worst but secretly hoping for the best is a cautious but sound way to approach the future when running a business.
Can Your Ideas be Trademarked – How will You Protect Yourself?
Part of future-proofing covers the life and longevity of your business idea or innovation. For example, can you copyright your work, or can you trademark what you want to launch? How can you protect yourself and your ideas from being cheaply produced, copied, or sold? You will not, of course, have all of the answers at this point, but if you can establish roughly what you will put in place and by when to protect yourself and your business, then you can look forward to the next 12 months ahead, instead of worrying about what lies around the next bend.
What Funding Do You Need to Get You Off the Ground?
And what do you need to get you through the first 12 months of trading? Getting your products and licenses together will take a fair old chunk of your budget, so ensure that you have adequate funding to carry on for the foreseeable future. When it comes to focusing on funding for the future, you need to factor in little or no sales. Of course, this is a worst-case scenario, but if you work on this, then you will never get yourself in a sticky situation with money or business finances.
Funding Options to Get You Off the Ground
When you know how much funding you need, you then need to decide how you will raise this much-needed cash. So, for example, have you considered traditional routes, or have you looked at other options such as crowdfunding. When you know where you can borrow from and you know what rate, you can start putting the wheels in motion to get your business up and running as soon as possible.
Testing Out Your New Ideas
If you are sinking a lot of investment into a new idea or innovation, then you may want to see if it sells before going any further. Testing in the early days will allow you to make any alterations or tweaks as early on as possible, ideally before a mainstream launch. To test out your new business, you need to get together both a group of friends and people from your target audience. To get the most out of testing, the process needs to be open and transparent.
Establishing Where Your Strengths and Weaknesses Lie
You cannot possibly be good at everything, so as early in the process as possible, it would be ideal for establishing just where your strengths and weaknesses lie. Once you have established what you are good at and what needs improvement, you can then start to put the wheels in motion to improve or alter what you offer. It can be hard taking feedback and applying changes, but it is important to seek and take comfort where you can and make the changes as quickly as possible to ensure your product or idea launch is as good as it can be.
Focusing on Self Improvement and Education
As a new business owner, you can often forget to look after yourself and your well-being. Launching a new business can be incredibly stressful and tiring. Sometimes, just taking a step backwards and focusing on your education and self-improvement can help you get the sense of calm and clarity you need to push forwards. When you improve yourself, you do what you can to be the best version of yourself, and this is something that will positively benefit you in that testing and launch period for your new business idea or innovation. Improving your education, perhaps even studying online, will leave you feeling confident and will increase both your knowledge and awareness, which is again a positive aspect that should not be overlooked.
Remembering to Relax and Enjoy the Process
Your idea, business, or innovation may have been weeks in the making, or it may have been months. All too often, you can get so swamped down with the technicalities of your business that you forget to enjoy it. So, in those first few weeks and months after launching, take some time out to appreciate what you have created and relax as much as you can. Worrying and stressing will often not solve anything, so try and minimize it where you can.