Once you have taken the initial steps to assess yourself and vet your idea, it’s time to move on to turning your dream into reality. Here are the next steps to take.

1. Secure Funding: Determine your startup costs and how you will fund your business. Explore options such as savings, loans, investors, or crowdfunding.
2. Establish Legal Structure: Decide on the legal structure of your business (e.g., sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation) and complete the necessary registrations and licenses.
3. Hire a Team: Recognize the skills and expertise you’ll need to fill and assemble a team. Consider hiring employees, finding co-founders, or outsourcing certain functions.
4. Develop Your Product or Service: Create a minimum viable product (MVP) to test the market. Use the feedback to refine your offering.
5. Make a Branding, Marketing and Sales Strategy: Craft a marketing plan to reach your target audience. Identify the most effective sales channels for your product or service.
6. Launch: Launch your business and be prepared to adapt as you learn more about your customers and market. Adjust your strategy and offerings based on real-world feedback and performance metrics.

Secure Funding

There are multiple avenues to explore when it comes to sourcing startup capital.

Self-Funding

This is the use of personal savings or assets to fund your business. Advantages include immediate availability and no interest payments or equity dilution. It can also be a signal to other investors that you have significant skin in the game.

Investors

Investors can be angels, venture capitalists, friends, or family members willing to provide capital in exchange for equity in your business. When engaging with potential investors, having a strong business plan, and being transparent about risks and potential returns is imperative.

Loans

Traditional bank loans or Small Business Administration (SBA) loans can offer the necessary capital. It’s important to have a solid credit history and a robust business plan when applying. Interest rates and repayment plans are crucial considerations to ensure they align with your business’s financial projections.

Grants

Some businesses may qualify for government grants, which do not require repayment. The challenge lies in navigating the application process, which can be competitive and may have specific requirements for the grantee.

Crowdfunding

Platforms like Kickstarter or Indiegogo can be great for validating a product and raising funds. The key here is an engaging story, an appealing product or service, and a strong marketing campaign to attract backers.

Establish Legal Structure

The business structure you choose has an impact on your operations, taxes and liabilities. Consult an expert before choosing which makes the most sense for you.

Sole Proprietorship

A Sole Proprietorship is the simplest business structure, where one individual operates the business and is responsible for all profits, losses, debts, and liabilities. It’s straightforward to set up and requires less paperwork than other structures. However, it offers no protection for personal assets if the business incurs debt or is sued, and financing can be a challenge due to limited fund-raising options.

Partnership

Partnerships are relatively easy to set up and come in various forms, including general partnerships, limited partnerships, and limited liability partnerships.• In a general partnership, partners manage the business and assume equal responsibility for debts and obligations.• Limited partners are usually investors without control over the company and are not subject to the same liabilities as general partners.• Limited liability partnerships offer all partners protection from personal liability with some exceptions.

Corporation

A separate legal entity owned by shareholders, the corporation itself, not the shareholders who own it, is held legally liable for the actions and debts the business incurs. Corporations have a mix of advantages and disadvantages. They provide the best protection for personal assets, and they can raise capital through the sale of stock.

However, they are costly to establish, come with complex tax and legal requirements, and demand extensive record-keeping, reporting, and operational processes.

Limited Liability Company (LLC)

The Limited Liability Company (LLC) is a blend of a partnership and corporation. It provides the liability protection of a corporation with the tax efficiencies and operational flexibility of a partnership. The “members” of an LLC are not personally responsible for the debts or liabilities of the business, making it a popular choice for business owners.

LLCs are straightforward to start, can have an unlimited number of members, and offer different tax distributions to their owners. However, they can be more expensive to operate than sole proprietorships and partnerships, and some states require more paperwork and additional fees.

Hire a Team

Building the right team is the backbone of any successful startup. Here are the crucial steps and insights into this initial hiring process.

Evaluating Needs and Role Identification

The first step is to identify the roles that are critical to the success and growth of your company. This often includes a mix of technical expertise, operational management, and sales or marketing prowess. Consider immediate needs, but also future scalability and the evolution of these roles.

Conducting the Hiring Process

Craft clear and engaging job descriptions using appropriate job listing channels. When interviewing (in-person or video calls) it’s important to not only assess skills and experience but also to gauge cultural fit and passion for the startup mission. Explore outsourcing options, where third parties or freelancers could save you time and money.

Onboarding and Integration

Once you’ve made your selections, a structured onboarding process is critical. The goal is to integrate new hires into the team seamlessly, ensuring they understand the business vision and culture, and can hit the ground running.

Developing a Company Culture

Company culture is far more than just a buzzword; it’s the lifeblood of an organization, dictating how team members interact and how the business conducts itself externally. Here’s how to develop a company culture that can help your startup flourish.

• Define and communicate core values on day one.

• Share visions, goals, and challenges openly, and invite your team to be part of solution-seeking processes.

• Promote independence and adaptability so team members feel empowered to take ownership of their tasks.

  • Build a culture of continuous learning by investing in your employees’ professional development.

  • Embrace the role of a visionary leader who can inspire and align the team around a common goal.

  • Develop emotional intelligence — be empathetic, listen actively, and show genuine interest in your team members’ well-being.

  • Take responsibility for both successes and failures.

Develop Your Product or Service

While we’re presenting these steps in a linear fashion, they may not happen precisely in this order. By now you have likely locked into your initial business concept, but here is the typical breakdown of product or service development:

1. Ideation: Jot down all potential product or service ideas without filtering your creativity.
2. Focus on Problem-Solving: Narrow your focus to concepts that solve a persistent pain point.
3. Feasibility Study: Conduct thorough research to determine if there’s a viable market for your offering.
4. Prototyping: Build an initial, simplified version of your product or service to test its concept.
5. Market Testing: Roll out the prototype to a controlled group for feedback.
6. Refinement: Use the feedback to modify and perfect your offering before a full-scale launch.
7. Final Development: Implement the final changes and prepare for the launch, considering production, distribution, and marketing efforts.

Aim for an MVP

Eric Ries, author of “The Lean Startup,” advocates for building a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and iterating based on user feedback. This reduces the risk and cost of developing products or services that may not align with customer desires.

Why Product Development is Essential

Product development isn’t static. Iterate based on feedback and market changes.

Intellectual Property Considerations

Protecting your intellectual property (IP) is crucial when establishing a new business. Here are the steps for protecting your IP:

1. Conduct an IP Audit: Identify what aspects of your business need protection.

2. Seek Legal Counsel: A qualified attorney can guide you on how to secure your IP rights effectively.

3. Register Your IP: File for patents, trademarks, and copyrights as appropriate.

4. Maintain Confidentiality: Use non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) when sharing business-sensitive information.

5. Monitor and Enforce: Keep an eye on the marketplace for potential infringements and enforce your rights as needed.

Make a Branding, Marketing and Sales Strategy

Your brand identity is the cornerstone of a business’s perception in the marketplace. Successful brand identity resonates with customers, leading to brand loyalty and recognition.

Elements of Brand Identity

1. Mission and Vision Statements: Begin by defining clear, communicative statements that align with your business goals.
2. Logo and Design Elements: These should be memorable, timeless, and adaptable across various platforms.
3. Color Palette: Colors invoke emotions. Choose a palette that matches your brand’s tone and personality.
4. Typography: Font choices significantly impact brand perception. Ensure consistency and clarity.
5. Tone of Voice: How your brand communicates — be it authoritative, friendly, or inspirational — should remain consistent throughout all messaging.

Steps to Building a Brand Identity

1. Research Your Audience: Identify and understand your target demographic. Surveys, focus groups, and market research can assist with this.
2. Analyze Competitors: Know your competition, their branding strategy, and how to differentiate yourself.
3. Develop Your Unique Value Proposition: This answers why customers should choose your product or service over others.
4. Design Your Visuals: Work with a designer to create visual elements that speak to your brand’s unique qualities.
5. Consistency Across All Platforms: Ensure your website, social media, packaging, and all marketing materials reflect your brand identity uniformly.
6. Tell Your Story: Customers connect with stories. Craft a narrative about your brand that engages and resonates with your audience.

Step-by-Step Guide to a Robust Marketing Plan:

A marketing plan outlines your business strategy, your understanding of the market, and how you intend to reach and sell to your target audience.

1. Market Research
   Understand your audience, their needs, pain points, and how your product or service will solve those issues. Analyze your competitors and identify what makes your offering unique—this is where you carve your USP (unique selling proposition).

2. Define Clear Marketing Objectives
   Set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals. These might include targets for market share, revenue, customer acquisition costs, or customer lifetime value.

3. Craft Your Messaging
   Determine what your key messages will be based on your USP. Ensure your branding is consistent across all channels and resonates with your target demographic.

4. **Choose Your Channels Wisely
   Not all marketing channels are suitable for every business. Test different channels—be it social media, content marketing, PPC, or offline advertising—to see what garners the best response rate and ROI.

5. Budget Allocation
   Allocate your marketing budget based on the channels that align most with your business goals and target audience, keeping some budget aside for testing new strategies.

6. Monitor, Analyze, and Adapt
   Have systems in place to track the effectiveness of your marketing strategies. Use this data to refine and adjust your plan regularly.

Launch

As Marc Randolph, co-founder of Netflix and angel investor, has noted: the only true way to know if you have a strong business idea is to “collide your idea with reality.” In other words, get it out there with the bare minimum expenditure of time, energy and money, and see how the market reacts. Iterate based on feedback and data.

The next step? Increase sales and grow. Find out the best strategies for doing just that here.

Frequently Asked Questions: