Entrepreneur’s Startup Guide: How to Start a Business?

Entrepreneur’s Startup Guide: How to Start a Business? Do you wish Want to be your own BOSS, but are struggling with where to start? Let’s accept this, a lot of youngsters with business capability in India stray away from their dreams just because they do not have any fundamental idea. You certainly do not wish to be thrown in that pit with them and DON’T WORRY, we won’t let you! This time, we would be discussing primarily theprimarily the baby steps that you can follow as you can keep this startup guide to set yourself a name in the Indianin the Indian startup market. What to ask yourself before entering into a startup? Think about the day this thought entered your mind - ‘’I think I should do something of my own!’’ But what? I know this question is scary, but think about it. You can start simply by figuring out things like: What kind of startup you wish to enter. Below are a few types of startups that you might like to choose from: Scalable Start-ups: If you plan to enter into a tech niche, then you will be a part of Scalable Startups which are very popular in the present times. Some companies that are part of it are: Uber, Zomato, Google etc. Small businesses Start-ups: These are the kind of startup where regular people can enter by funding themselves and can grow this way. Grocery stores, hair salons, and confectionery stores are a few of them. Lifestyle startup: Well, this might sound interesting. You can create a business out of your own interest and hobbies and that's what is a part of a Lifestyle startup. For example you can open an online bakery class and grow your business. Buyable Start-ups: People from tech industry often develop a start-up from scratch just to sell it to bug players in the market like amazon and this is a part of buyable startup. Second thing to take note of would be that you wish to deal in goods or services and knowing this is very important since how your business model would look is totally dependent on the type of dealing you wish to do. What can be better than a deeply curated startup plan? The next step in this startup guide is executing your startup idea. But, before this you need to have all things in line. A business plan can be really helpful because it will help you till the end, that is, when you will start reviewing your progress. You have to focus on five functions of management that includes; Planning: The word itself suggests the meaning quite clearly. Planning is all about the first step in the process of starting to get things done in the right manner. You can plan the entire functions of management right here in the first step. Organizing: In this process, you bring together all the driving forces needed for your startup be it physical or financial. Staffing: A job done alone can sometimes be a job undone. For a successful startup, you need to have collective specialties with you which you can take care of during staffing or hiring the right people on board. Directing: The work actually starts when everyone is told about their field and what is expected of them. This is possible only with enough motivation. Controlling: The last and the deciding factor of the management functions happens to be controlling. Here, you check your desired business model with the actual one and assess the changes. Where to get funding for your startup? Remember, as your business grows, it requires good funding which depends on the size of your business. But where will you get all that big amount? By pitching. You can contact giant companies and tell them how you wish to enter this business and what is there for them if they help you. Fundings can be approached to angel investors of India, who are big firms interested in investing in crazy minds as yours. Besides the angel investors, you can source your fundings from: Your near and dear ones- If you are just starting with experimenting the worth of your ideas, the simplest way to fund your idea then, would be from the people in close vicinity and this would be a great start because it is a less burdening form of finance generation than others. Bank loans- Banks are always a good option to source your funding from. There are various policies that banks work on while offering loans. Some of the basic loans that businesses are offered are: Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY), Credit Guarantee Scheme (CGS), Standup India,Sustainable Finance Scheme etc. Venture capitals: It is a type of private equity, wherein investors provide funding to small business and budding start-ups which have a potential of getting a good long-term growth. Make yourself knowledgeable about startup world: Business is not simple. There are a lot of things to know and be aware of before running into one. Being knowledgeable does not mean that you have to have a proper degree in management. No. For it, you require the right skills with you. But, by knowledge we mean that you should be aware of technicalities of business world and this can be done in two ways: You can stay in constant touch with people related to business, start-ups or anything close to it. This will help you to make strong initial connections and also to know recent startup developments. You can understand and learn about legal steps involved before entering into any business and that can be anything like applying for a legal license or filing for a trademark. Where will your business be visible? As mentioned above, you have to have a clear idea on how you are going to deal with your potential customers, online or offline. The technicalities for both are quite different since having an online business would require you a space in the web-world, but offline business needs you to ponder upon the following points: Location of your business- You can have a business with a geographical location, or you can plan to have a total e-business. Usually online businesses require less funding than physical businesses because a lot of cost related to location, electricity etc gets invisible. Nearby facilities- Now, this one is important for a lot of reasons. Your location decision should be such that you can easily find talent for your business and resources nearby. Location should be attractive and accessible in case of food outlets and most importantly, cost effective. These questions might not be relevant to you if your startup is online but there you would have other questions like: Customer connection- With multiple marketing options available today, you should know how to effectively manipulate the best out of them since there is no close interaction with your customers. Making yourself a brand- You can do multiple things to be visible online. Focus greatly on interacting with customers, providing valuable content, and revisiting your competitor's start-up strategies. How will you plan to promote your startup? With thousands of startups sprouting, making yourself visible and known is certainly not easy. Marketing can be done in multiple effective and creative ways and you should be aware of all of them. Some basic ones include: Focussing on visualizing your business online in social media platforms. Taking initiatives to organize fun activities. Hosting webinars to increase knowledge about your startup, etc. Conclusion- Once you have invested your time in marketing, you have to focus on retaining your customer base and growing it. So, this is your handy startup guide telling you the stepping stones you need to cross to become an entrepreneur or a startup owner in India and worldwide. You can read our other blogs too on similar topics for further insight.