Learn everything you need to know to start your own business

My friend Ryan at PlantingDollars.com contacted me a few weeks ago about an idea he has to start a niche travel website for the Waikiki beach area of Hawaii.  This is a guy who decided a year after receiving a Bachelor of Science in Finance to buy a one-way ticket to Hawaii and pursue his dreams.  He’s a motivated, determined young man and I’m sure he’s going to succeed at whatever he sets his mind to.

One of Ryan’s goals is to have a million dollars in investments by the time he’s 40, and he knows one of the best ways to reach this goal is to start his own business.  We’re going to follow Ryan’s progress as he develops his business plan and takes all the necessary steps to ensure his business is successful.

Ryan’s not the only person I know who would give their eye teeth to chuck the 9-5, ditch their cubicle, and join the ranks of the successfully self-employed.  If you’re one of these people be sure to subscribe to my RSS feed so you can be automatically notified when the next article on how to start your own business is posted.  I’m going to cover everything you need to know to create a successful business step-by-step over the next few months just like I did with the “Develop your own marketing plan” articles.

The following nine topics are the key to business success and we’ll be using them to guide Ryan’s (and possibly yours) planning process:

• The Business Concept
• Understanding the Market
• Industry Health and Trends
• Consistent Business Focus and Clear Strategic Position
• Capable Management
• Ability to Attract, Motivate, and Retain Employees
• Financial Control
• Anticipating and Adapting to Change
• Company’s Values and Integrity

The Business Concept

The first question you have to ask yourself is what needs will your business meet.  Meeting needs is the basis of all business. If your business doesn’t meet some real and important consumer need or desire you won’t get the customers and your business will will be destined for failure.

Successful businesses have at least one or more of the following elements:

- Something New – a new product, service, feature, or technology.

- Something Better – an improvement on an existing product or service with more bells and whistles, is cheaper, more reliable, faster, or more convenient.

- An Underserved or New Market - this could be a market where the demand is greater than what competitors can meet (e.g., the Wii), an unserved location, or a niche market that hasn’t been dominated by competitors (like Ryan’s idea for a micro travel website).

- New Delivery System or Distribution Channel – Amazon.com is a perfect example of a company who capitalized on this idea.  The big chain book stores were selling books online when Jeff Bezos drafted his business plan for Amazon, but the key difference was his innovative use of the internet and a highly efficient distribution channel.  He devised a way to help his customers find the books they were looking for with the Amazon website and quickly get the books into their hands using Amazon’s regional distribution centers.  Amazon’s distribution system proved to be so efficient they eventually branched out into distributing just about any product you can imagine.  Now he has another hit on his hands with the Kindle book reader, another innovative way of delivering books to consumers.

- Increased Integration – this is when a product is manufactured and sold by the same company, or when a company offers more services or products in one location.  Apple is a prime example of a company who develops, manufactures, and sells its own products.  They’ve maintained tight control of the technologies they’ve developed and their relationship with their customers and as a result they are one of the most successful companies in the world.

Your business idea should have at least one if not more of these elements in your business concept.  If your business idea doesn’t incorporate any of these elements you may want to go back to the drawing board and rethink your business concept.

Also, when evaluating your business concept ask yourself “Is this something I would want to use myself?” If you’re not sold that you would want to use it, even if you’re convinced your business concept fills a need, an unserved market, or a niche, then chances are your business isn’t going anywhere.  In addition to one or more of the above elements you should be passionate about your business concept.  If you don’t have a true passion for your business then eventually you’ll get burned out on the idea, lose interest, and your business will flounder and fail.

In the next article we’ll discuss how to evaluate your target market to determine if you’ll have a sufficient customer base for your service or product.  We’ll also check in on Ryan and see how he’s making out with his market research for his Waikiki travel site.

- Do you have a desire to start your own business?  If so, what is it?  Have you ever started a business and failed?  Feel free to leave a comment and tell us your story.  Also leave a comment if you would like help getting your own business idea off the ground.

Be sure to subscribe to my RSS feed to be automatically notified when the next article is posted or follow me on Twitter. You can also have new articles delivered to your email inbox by entering your email address in the “Get Updates by Email” box in the upper right hand corner. Thanks for reading!

You might also like to read:

1. More small business shoestring marketing tips
2. Small business marketing on a shoestring budget
3. Develop your own marketing plan
4. The definition of FAILURE
5. Develop your own marketing plan – part 5