This weekend I attended ‘StartUp Saturday’, an online event organised by Enterprise Nation.
This event was for people looking to start a business or currently working on their business.
The event was great: the speaker was very engaging, the attendees were interacting, and the content was very valuable; I definitely learnt some things that I hadn’t come across before.
There was a lot of topics covered, from business structures to social media best practices.
However my biggest takeaway was their talk on the ‘5 points to include in your business plan’.
This was very useful, they even included an easy to remember acronym for it: I’M OFF!
So for today’s blog, I wanted to discuss and give my views on these 5 key points.
However, I’ll be talking about them as the 5 points you need in general to start a business.
What is your Idea?
As with any business, you need to have some sort of idea of what your business would do.
How do you come up with an idea? It’s easy. Think of the following questions:
- Is there a problem that I can solve for someone?
- Is there a gap in the market somewhere?
- Do I have a passion, interest, or a hobby?
Once you identify what your idea is, you need to ask yourself is this something I could do:
- Better?
- Faster?
- Locally?
You may notice that ‘cheaper’ isn’t on the list.
One of the things I liked is that the speaker said that your point of difference should never just price, because there will always be someone else that will come along and undercut you.
However let your unique selling point (USP) be one of the 4 options above, that way no one can just come along and take your business.
People are indeed willing to pay you if you solve a problem for them in a different way.
Research the Market
Once you have your idea, the next thing you then need to do is ‘research’.
Research falls under two categories, what I call ‘secondary’ and ‘primary’ research.
Secondary research involves a lot of reading: articles, books, market research, statistics, etc.
The things you are trying to find out from your research is:
- How big is the market that I am trying to enter?
- Who are the competitors in this field?
- What kind of products, services, and prices are they offering?
By doing this research you’ll quickly be able to identify whether your idea is ‘viable’ or not.
The other type of research is what I call ‘primary’ research.
Primary research actually involves talking to people from within your target audience.
These could be friends/family, people from your network, or random people online.
This is critical, as it will determine whether your audience actually wants your idea or not.
By backing up your research with real data, this is much for convincing to any future investor.
Plan your Operations
Once you’ve done your research and you’ve verified that it is worth pursuing your idea, the next step is to start planning your business.
In any business, there is the ‘operations’ department, which is the backbone of any company.
Questions you need to ask yourself when planning your business are:
- Do I need to buy space, vehicles, equipment, etc.?
- Do I need physical retail space or just an online store?
- What business model will I be adopting for this business?
This step is where you figure out the different ways that your business can make money.
Starting a business can be very daunting, especially when there are a lot of unknowns.
However, by writing things down, this will help you reduce stress and give your more clarity.
How will you Fund your Business?
It’s no secret that your business will require money, in some cases a lot of money/capital.
Thankfully, starting a business is much easier and cheaper today than it is was 20 years ago.
There are so many different ways that you can fund your business these days:
- Bootstrapping/Self-funded
- Loans/Grants
- Investors/Crowd Funding
It’s likely that at the start, you will probably need to fund your business yourself.
Once you have a bit of traction, you can then start applying for loans, grants, or competitions.
After you have some sort of minimal viable product (MVP) and maybe some potential or existing customers, you can look into crowd funding (Kickstarter) or even pitch to investors.
The most important thing is that your start with whatever you have. You’ll be surprised at what you can do with very little money. You should never worry about how you’ll fund your business. There are more opportunities these days for entrepreneurs than ever before.
Turn to your Friends
There will be times when you will be feel stuck, unmotivated, or even feel like giving up.
As an entrepreneur, this is often the case, as there will be problems around every corner.
This is why having a support network is so crucial, to get you through those tough times.
There are many different types of people you need for different scenarios:
- Mentors that will use their experience and knowledge to help you overcome problems.
- Community of other entrepreneurs so you feel that you’re not on this journey alone.
- Friends/family that will encourage you and keep you accountable throughout the process.
I think people underestimate the importance of having a support community, not just when it comes to entrepreneurship but in all aspects of life.
I guarantee that having people in your life that you can turn to in difficult times will make a huge difference when it comes to the success of your business.
Final Thoughts
I think these 5 points are essential to anyone looking to start a business.
Obviously starting a business is much more complicated than that, but it’s a good start.
As mentioned, there hundreds of other things to think of when starting a business, from legal structure to accounting to everything else in between.
But the ‘IM OFF’ framework I think is a great way to focus on what’s important at the start.
Use these points to even put together a business plan (minus the last one) that you can share.
I would also encourage you to check out Enterprise Nation, they have some create support and resources for start-ups/entrepreneurs, as well as free consultations with their advisors.
I hope you have enjoyed reading my thoughts of the 5 points that you need to start a business.
I would love to hear your thoughts. If any of these points resonated with you, let me know!
