Saturday Startup Series

How do you escape the 9 to 5?

Do you have a dream of owning your own business -- of leaving your day job and going it alone? Today, we focus on the first thing I ask a potential business owner -- "Do you have the right stuff?" The 'Right Stuff' falls into five main questions ... be honest with yourself. These measure the traits I've found most important to an entrepreneur.

Do you have the right skills to start your own business?

Being good at something doesn't mean that you would be good at running a business that delivers it. Too many people often think that because they're good at something, they would be good at doing it as their own business. When I meet with a potential new business owner, I want to evaluate where their gaps are. Skill gaps are important to recognize upfront because you want to respond to them as you start your business.

What business type is right for you?

Embarking on the journey of starting your own business is thrilling yet challenging. One of the first steps is understanding the different types of businesses and determining which aligns with your vision and resources. Let's dive into the various business types to help you make an informed decision.

What are the possible entry methods to starting your own business?

Many people think that starting a business of their own means starting something from scratch. However, there are several options to successfully enter the entrepreneurial realm. 

Are you seeking to escape the corporate world and strike it out on your own?

Now it's time to start making some specific business decisions. Nearly all entrepreneurs start off on their own. They forage into the world of business ownership without much (if any) guidance. But you don't have to do this!

You also don't need to break the bank by hiring an expensive business coach. This is a major reason new founders don't hire a coach -- cost. But you really do need help and there is no reason to go it alone.

Want to escape employment for business ownership? What to start?

Selecting a new business to start follows a typical strategic planning approach. You can start Inside-Out or Outside-In.

How do you know if your new business idea is any good?

Once you have a new business idea in mind, you should conduct appropriate market research and a feasibility study to determine if it's really a good idea or not. Market research is a critical first step in understanding your target audience, competitors, and market dynamics. It lays the foundation for informed decision-making and paves the way for comprehensive feasibility studies. 

Can some good business ideas turn out to not be so good?

Once you have a new business idea in mind, conducting appropriate market research is crucial to understanding your target audience, competitors, and market dynamics. This foundational step paves the way for comprehensive feasibility studies.

How do you start and run a super successful restaurant or bar?

First off, great cooks are seldom great business owners. If you've determined through my earlier assessments (previous posts) that you don't have the requisite business traits and skills, hire a coach. The root causes of your business failing is you and poor planning.

Is your great business idea really all that great?

On paper, things might look great. But, delivering a test product or service and determining success can save you a lot of heartache later. There are many ways to test your new business idea without investing a lot of money up front. Startup costs can be extremely high, especially when you have to make capital investments, such as a location, equipment, materials, supplies, and storage. Not to mention business-related expenses like technology, marketing, and professional support (like legal and financial).

What is a key thing to do prior to starting out a new business?

I wanted to talk about a key marketing concept that business owners need to start working on before they even start their business -- it's called Social Proof. Social proof is a psychological marketing tactic to convince people to hire you or buy your products. Before you actually start building and selling anything, you can start building social proof.

What is the most important first step when building a business?

What sets a Strategic Business Plan apart from other business plans?

What in your business drives you to keep going?

Do you find it difficult creating a vision for your business?

If you do, you're not alone! Vision creation is often one of the hardest things for business owners to do.

Why is crafting a vision so hard?

Is how you and your business behaves when you start out important?

One of the biggest misses in building a strategic foundation for a new business is ignoring core values, guiding principles, or a code of conduct. Many new founders don't see the point.

"Core values are for big companies with lots of employees. Not for my little business, just starting out."

What separates my Strategic Business Plan (SBP) from just a business plan?

How will your business deliver value to your customers?

Is it important to know who should do what in a new startup?

What do you do with the organizational structure for your new business?

The next step in the development of your Strategic Business Plan (SBP) is to define the business operating system. However, now that you have an organizational structure established, there is a little more work to do.

What does the engine of your business look like? Does it need maintenance?

Your business operating system is the engine that runs your business. You wouldn't build a car without an engine, and you don't build a business without an operating system.

How much should I charge for my products and services?

One of the biggest challenges in starting a business is determining how much to charge for what you offer.

When you're brand new in business, your initial goal is to simply make enough money so that your business is profitable. But you have no brand name and might not have any experience with what you're selling.

Are you charging the right amount of money for your services?

Consider all the thoughts that must go into deciding how much you should charge for your products and services. Charge too much and you drive customers away. Charge too little and you appear cheap. Your pricing decisions will drive so many different results.

How well have you defined your small business's startup infrastructure?

One of the key areas that is often failed to address in a startup's Strategic Business Plan is a solid identification of their business infrastructure.

Infrastructure, in your Strategic Business Plan, includes buildings, vehicles, equipment, technology (hardware and software), and supplies. You want to fully account for these items up front and continuously review and update these items.

How prepared are you to exit your new startup business?

Most businesses have a lifecycle of starting, growing, scaling, improving, and closing.

An often-not-thought-about part of your operations strategy is your exit plan from the business. Basically, what's your long-term strategy for the life of the business?

Is your business prepared for another COVID-like event?

The last thing you want to think about when starting a new business is dealing with a disaster. Thus, we never think about it, and when it happens, we're not prepared!

Do you really know who all the important people are to your business?

The next section in your Strategic Business Plan (SBP) is on Marketing. Once your new business has an official Marketing Department, they take over an expand on this section as a Strategic Marketing Plan. Good marketing always starts with an audience analysis. Your business’s audience is all the important people to your business -- stakeholders.

How much do you know about your most important customers?

We start with the customers of your new business. Much earlier, in this series, we talked about identifying who these customers were, so we could establish their needs, your purpose, and your vision.

Customers are, by far, the most important stakeholder group to your business -- without customers, you simply don't have a business.

How well do you know your direct competition in business?

Every business, eventually will have direct competition. These are businesses that offer exactly what your business offers and could attract your customers away. A few businesses have a unique and innovative product or service, so they start with little to no competition. However, soon competition will appear.

How much do you know about your direct competition in business?

As you're building out the marketing section of your Strategic Business Plan (SBP), and you're examining your stakeholders and specifically your competition, there's a planning tool that's very useful.

It's called a SWOT Analysis. Typically, in planning, this is an internal tool used to identify things to leverage and things to overcome. In our marketing portion of the SBP, we can use it to examine our business against our direct competitors. 

What do the marketing tactics look like for a startup?

Most business startups don't have a lot of money to invest into massive marketing activities. They also typically don't have money to hire someone to handle the marketing for their company.

However, there are some tactics to consider when starting out. These are documented in the marketing section of the Strategic Business Plan that we've been building these past several Saturdays.

Does your business need an online presence?

As I'm thinking about starting a new company, one of the first things I do is think about the name of the business. I don't care so much about the logo yet, just the name.

With a name in mind, then there are several things that you need to do.

When starting a brick-and-mortar business, how do people find you?

Here's your sign!

Continuing to discuss the Marketing Approach in your Strategic Business Plan (SBP), this installment of the Saturday Startup Series is on signage.

How do you launch a new business?

"If you build it, they will come," is a flawed strategy! Field of Dreams only happens in the movie. Every business is different and how it enters the marketplace says a lot about it's success.

Do the finances of your company make your head hurt?

We now come to the last section of your Strategic Business Plan (SBP) in our Saturday Startup Series: Finance.

I hear that dull grown.

Math, statistics, and finance makes many heads hurt. But the reason most dread this section of their plan is because they have no idea where their numbers are coming from.

What does the financial rigor in business look like?

An important aspect of the financial section of your Strategic Business Plan is to begin with your Financial Rigor and processes. I'm always amazed when I meet with multi-million dollar companies and they haven't established any kind of rigor around their financial performance. 

When starting a business, wouldn't a financial crystal ball be nice?

Unfortunately, business doesn't work that way!

When starting a business, there are several financial reports that need to be created. I shared this list of reports a couple of weeks ago on my Saturday Startup Series post -- check it out. However, when starting a new business and creating your Strategic Business Plan (SBP), all of these reports start out blank ... and blank is very daunting for a new business owner.

Do you plan to invoice clients for work that was already accomplished?

Two financial processes take up a lot of time for your new business: Accounts Payable (AP) and Accounts Receivable (AR).

AR is one of the immediate areas I like to look at when consulting with small and medium businesses (SMB). I've found, on more than one occasion, more than a year of profit sitting in a business's AR -- sometimes several years old and uncollectable! What's worse is when the SMB is still doing business with these deadbeats!!!

When you start your business, do you need to build a runway?

If you're thinking, "I'm not building an airport," then you've got the wrong idea.

Every business, from the start should establish its Cash Runway. You might call it a Cash Buffer or Operating Runway.

When you have your Strategic Business Plan (SBP) in place, what's next?

It's now time to build your business.

Today, we step into the Formation phase of starting a new business in our Saturday Startup Series. 

When starting a business, who is the most important person to consult?

Aside from a business coach, before starting your business filing actions, consulting a lawyer is a smart and strategic move.

A qualified business attorney will help you avoid costly mistakes, ensure your legal foundation is sound, and tailor your structure and agreements to your specific needs.

Are you ready to submit your business filings?

File it to forge it!

You’ve planned your vision and picked your structure, now is the time to make it real.

In today's Saturday Startup Series post, let's discuss the steps to filing your business.

How prepared are you to launch your business?

Over the last two weeks, we've discussed, during our Saturday Startup Series, the formation of your company. We focused on selecting the structure and establishing the name.

But are you ready to launch?

Everything is ready, how do you launch a new business?

Over the past several months, we've been slowly and steadily building a new business in the Saturday Startup Series. Everything is prepped and we're ready to start doing business -- whew!

Up until now, we've focused on researching, planning, documenting, and preparing. Today's the big day!!!

What does a business launch look like?

Not all businesses are the same, as is the start of these businesses. However, they do fall into a few distinct categories

For this Saturday Startup Series, let's discuss what your business launch might look like. They fall into three main categories, and they may all occur in order.

Why do business owners often frame the first dollar they've ever made?

The framing of your first dollar earned in your new business, is a symbolic tradition to represent the hard work that goes into starting a new business and starting to make money from it.

But, as our last Saturday Startup Series post, let this gesture represent the start of a new chapter for your business that you've created.