So you have a wonderful, world changing business idea? Awesome! – now comes the hard part. Now you have to give legs to that idea, but how do you do that? How do you go from an abstract concept to a hardcore money making business venture? Well, you can start by following this step by step guide. This post is the first in a series of posts covering the steps you need to take to get your business rolling. Stay tuned for the rest in our “Starting a Business Checklist” series!

 

1. Write It All Down

This step may seem obvious, but don’t overlook it! Start with your idea and write down everything that comes to mind when your thinking about starting and conducting your business – problems likely to arise, competition in your field, potential extra revenue streams, etc. Basically, brain-dump info and thoughts concerning your idea to paper. Don’t worry if some things you write down aren’t fully developed, this is just a preliminary procedure.

 

2. Focus on Pain-Points and Target Customers

Now that you have everything in front of you, focus on two things: what pain points are you alleviating? and what who is your target customer?  A pain point is a problem that people (sometimes everyone, sometimes a small subset of the population) face. Some pain points are not addressed at all by current businesses. For example, think about a selfie-stick. The pain point: peoples’ arms aren’t long enough to fit everyone they want into the picture. Still, many other pain points occur because current businesses are coming up short or just not listening to their customer base. These can be customer service, quality, or even price-based pain points.

Next, who is your target customer? Are you selling your product or service to a business or consumer. That is the first decision you need to make, because consumers and businesses spend money in much different ways and have different needs. Once that is established, keep narrowing down your target until you weed out all people who will likely just waste your time. The internet is a great resource for finding your target market. Often entrepreneurs fail to see their target until its too late and waste valuable resources and time marketing to people who have no interest in their company.

 

3. Validate Your Idea

Here is where the rubber hits the road. Is your idea going to hold water? Validation of your idea is key. Many ideas die here. The great thing is that with the internet this stage is much easier than it used to be. Facebook groups, niche forums, Reddit, niche blogs – theses are are just a few sites online that bring together people of like minds. A lot of people with shared interest in your niche congregating online is awesome for you. You can throw out your idea directly to your target customers. You can validate your idea the old-fashioned way by going door to door or speaking to people at a mall too, just remember to focus on your target.

 

4. Get Ready to Put In Work!

All thoughts concerning idea are written out in front of you, you have a killer pain point, the target market is defined, and you are satisfied with your validation. Now, its time to live out that American dream and get out on your grind.

Be on the look out for the other posts in this series. When you finish reading the series, you will know how to take your business venture from 0 to 100.