Every budding entrepreneur is faced with a dizzying array of choices and uncertainties. You have to make decisions that could have major implications for long term cost long before the business starts to show any profit. Negotiating your way through this territory is tricky. But the following tips will ensure your business has firm foundations.
Professional advice
Whatever kind of business you are planning to launch, get an accountant on board as soon as possible. If you find one with experience of working in a similar field or related venture, they will have a far greater understanding of the potential risks and road blocks that lie ahead. The way that you set up and structure your business in those early days could have major financial implications down the line. So taking the opportunity to get professional advice right from the off is worth the outlay. The entrepreneur will also want to have a consultation with legal counsel as early as possible for many of the same reasons.
A strong brand
You might be tempted to wait until much later in the business before you start to think about branding. But failing to commit the time this part of the project requires in the early stages means you risk coming up with a far better branding concept somewhere down the line and feel compelled to change it, diluting your original brand.
A solid security strategy
Every business, large or small, is becoming increasingly dependent on the web for all aspects of its operation. Once you start storing customer details or allowing customers to make transactions online, you are going to have to embrace the security concerns that are part and parcel of modern online life.
Don’t wait until your fledgling company is the victim of an attack before you do something about it. Draw up a comprehensive security strategy. Educate your staff on the dangers as soon as possible. If proper security is too costly, consider migrating to the cloud. In doing so, you can offload half of the security responsibility to a cloud service provider. However, you will still be responsible for certain aspects of your cloud usage. To fulfill your responsibilities, consider supplementing your cloud usage with a security technology such as a CASB. CASB, short for cloud access security broker, is considered a must-have security solution for organizations that want to take advantage of the many benefits of cloud computing without putting their sensitive data at risk.
Long and short-term goals
It’s good to have ambition and long-term targets, but you also need a mix of short term plans to sustain you as you take the journey towards success. If you cannot maintain business growth in the short term, you won’t make it far enough into the future to execute any of your long-term plans.
A market research plan
In the early days of your business, resource constraints might make it difficult for you to carry out sufficiently wide market research. But such a step is essential if you want to be sure of success.
Although you may believe you have identified a new product or service that is not currently available, this does not necessarily mean that there will be a demand for it. Market research can provide insights into the functions that potential customers would most want to be in place before they make a purchase.
The best way to carry out such research on a tight entrepreneur budget is to plan everything out in advance with a very clear timeline and a single, simple methodology. Be sure you obtain thoughts and opinions from people who are clearly in your target market, otherwise your findings will have little relevance.
