Business Start Up – What should you be thinking about?

Business Start Up – What should you be thinking about?

Succeeding in business will be very rewarding, but it can be challenging getting there. First of all you need to decide what you will do in your business start up and who will you sell to?

Do you have a specialist skill already and are now wanting to branch out and become your own boss? Or do you want to move into a completely new sector? Will your business involve selling products or will it be service based?

Will you move straight into your new business, or run in alongside an employment to begin with? This is useful while you build up a customer base to give you a regular income, if you decide to go “all in” with your new business, ensure you have adequate savings and resources to keep your head above water until the business hopefully takes off.

Will your business be based online or will premises and equipment be required?

Once you decide what you are going to do and where you are going to do it, the next thing to do is some research, this can involve books, internet, data statistics, speaking with potential customers and suppliers and research on competitors.

So once you have done your research and are happy with your idea, you need to decide how you will structure your business, sole trader, partnership, company or LLP? There are pros and cons to each scenario, depending on the size of the business and the risks and exposure.

With your business starting to get going, you need a name, a brand, an identity and a logo. The factors to help you decide on these are who will your product or service appeal to? What image do you want the business to have? Will people recognise what you are selling from it?

Now it’s time to get looking at the business plan! It needs to be very well thought out, so you start out with a clear picture of your aims and strategies, how and where will you sell your product/service? What KPIs will be used to monitor success? How will you finance the business? What is your break even point?

Alongside you on your journey, it’s a good idea to have a mentor, someone that you respect and you can bounce ideas off and receive guidance on running a business. It is also important that you choose your accountant early, this won’t involve any significant cost, but you will be far get a better experience with your accountant if they can understand your journey and work with you, not for you. Getting the figures correct as you go along and understanding your numbers is one of your most important business tools.

A cash injection will be required to start your business, this may come from your savings or you may need to raise external funds. Before making any commitments, you need to understand what your business is going to cost, depending on what or how you will sell.  You will need to fund your working capital (stock, debtors) and overheads. If it is a relatively small venture, you may be able to work from home or offer a mobile service to begin with, in order to save money on premises until you become established.

Ensure you have sufficient insurance in place and check if there are any industry specific laws to your business that you should be aware of. All businesses need to consider their duties such as income, tax, PAYE, VAT, employment law and health and safety.

Here we have just touched on the things that you should be thinking about if you want to run a business, at Emerald Accountancy Services, we offer a 3 step FREE start up plan to help get you going in the right direction. We can help you with all things mentioned above and turn them into reality for your business idea.

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