Starting your own business can be hugely exciting and rewarding, but it can also be absolutely terrifying. You need to learn fast, make use of every tool and resource available to you and plan your path forward with care.
We’ve put together some useful tips for setting up a business from scratch. Good luck!
Step 1: Developing the concept
The key to setting up your own business and making a success of it is to base everything around a really good business concept. You need an idea, product, service or gap in the market that you believe you can commercialise, one that you think people really want or need - and you need to be passionate about it. Once you have your idea, you can start to test its plausibility, looking at everything from whether the product works to whether there is a market for it and whether you can make a profit from it. Need inspiration? Alan Hall on Forbes.com guides you through a six-step process to developing a world-class business idea – it’s well worth a read.
Step 2: Making the business plan watertight
Now that you have an idea, and an inkling of how to turn that idea into a profitable business, you need to get everything on paper in the form of a business plan. You need a name for your company and a clear idea of how you will structure it. You need to register as a business, register for tax and cover all the legal essentials at the very start, as well as drawing up a clear plan and a set of goals for how you will run your business and what you hope it will achieve.
Startups.co.uk’s 10 steps to starting a business is invaluable reading for any entrepreneur, covering everything from applying for funding and choosing the right business structure to coming up with a name, finding an accountant and even creating a logo.
Step 3: People and premises
Many entrepreneurs start their businesses from home, without anyone working for them. Whether this works for you depends on whether you need other people to turn your idea into a business, or whether you can run everything solo for a while. As for how to set up a business from home, there are some crucial things to remember, some of which we covered in a handy blog on organising your home office:
- Set everything up as professionally as possible. This means setting aside a room in your house (if possible) as a dedicated office space, buying good quality office furniture and making sure you’re set up with everything you need to run a professional business.
- Avoid distractions. Unfortunately, this can be very tricky with kids running about, the phone constantly ringing and people at the door, but you need to try to separate work and home (even though you are at home).
- Consider working one day a week or more in professional premises. If you need to hold a meeting with important clients or avoid the distractions of the home and get some solid work done, making use of co-working facilities one day a week could be the ideal solution. You get to work alongside other professionals in a dedicated office space, where everything you need is easily accessible, so it can be great for your productivity.
- Get a professional address. Getting your post delivered to a professional address, such as one near a major city, can be great for your company’s credibility. Similarly, having a professional receptionist answer your calls can be a big boost for your brand’s image, and it can save you from being constantly distracted by the phone ringing – and you can be sure you’ll never miss an important message.
Thinking about your office space
Recognising when it’s time for your business to evolve and grow is crucial to its success, so as a business owner you need to be flexible and make changes when they are needed. If you find you can’t avoid distractions working at home, if you are sick of holding meetings in your living room – see why this never works in our blog – or you want to start employing staff, it’s time to consider a change.
Committing to a long and potentially expensive lease on office space is likely to be too big a step for your fledgling company, but luckily there are a couple of more suitable solutions. As we’ve mentioned previously, co-working spaces can be ideal for freelancers, sole traders and small teams. This kind of environment is a great place to innovate, network and collaborate, as well as benefiting from a full range of facilities, from professional meeting spaces to conferencing equipment.
Start-ups, entrepreneurs and established businesses are increasingly naming the benefits co-working can bring to new businesses. Citing the “nearly immeasurable amounts of value for new businesses” co-working provides, Rameet Chawla founder of Fueled, an award-winning design and development company based in London and New York, speaks of the many benefits of co-working.
“A great co-working space is a collection of minds inspired by the brand that brought them together. As a member, you benefit from the brand that creates the space, the ethos it aspires to, and the people it attracts,” Chawla writes on Entrepreneur.
Virtual offices can be good options for those wanting a professional address and call answering, as well as occasional access to professional facilities like meeting rooms.
In fact virtual offices enable businesses to look significantly more professional and greater professionalism can quickly equate to more business and higher turnover. As well as giving businesses a prestigious business address, virtual offices provide professional services including:
- Telephone answering
- Mail handling
- Customised services
- Networking opportunities
Cost savings
A virtual office can also help business save money, as you only pay for what you need, so you do not have to worry about paying for traditional office expenses that you are not going to regularly use, such as rent, utilities and equipment.
Similar to co-working centres, the benefits of virtual offices are regularly cited. As the CEO Suite writes:
“Virtual office space can be highly beneficial for nearly any business, of any size, as well as home-based business executives on the move. It will provide your business with immediate presence in an untapped market, at a fraction of the cost of a traditional office.”
For those that are ready to take a slightly bigger step, serviced offices could be the right direction to go in. A serviced office helps entrepreneurs avoid setup costs and delays, as they’re ready to use from the day you walk in the door. If you can’t wait to start growing and expanding, this kind of setup has everything you need to hit the ground running.
Step 4: Setting and reviewing goals
To measure and mark how well your new business is doing, you should set realistic goals and targets at the start. Don’t be afraid to revisit and review these as time passes, as it’s important to constantly revaluate what you’re doing, how you’re doing it and how well it’s working.
The steps above are just a broad overview of the many different tasks and processes involved in setting up your own business. For a more in-depth look, check out the Forbes.com guide to starting your own company. It takes time, perseverance, resilience and a good deal of determination to success – but you can do it!
For high-quality, flexible and professional co-working in Leeds, Carrwood Park provides excellent co-working premises, designed to help businesses of all sizes grow. Similarly, Carrwood Park offers high-quality virtual offices, aimed at giving your business a more professional edge.
For more advice and tips on setting up your own business, as well as finding the right office space in which to do it, subscribe to the Carrwood Park blog.