Ask yourself if you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur?
being an entrepreneur means taking on a lot of responsibilities and facing a lot of challenges!
First of all, you need to find out if you are capable of running your own business.
You will need specific knowledge and experience in the field to be ultimately successful in the business you choose.
Below is an assessment that you should make before going into business. this assessment will measure whether you have the right abilities to be an entrepreneur
How to Start a Business? What Are The Steps?
In order to open a business, you will go through five stages, which are as follows:
- Idea stage
- building stage
- Prelaunch stage
- launch stage
- Growth stage
1/Idea stage
Idea stage is a common way to describe the early steps in an innovation process that involves brainstorming and filtering a large number of ideas until you are left with your best ideas that are documented as a business case. A business, strategy or plan that hasn’t been developed in any significant way simplicable
1/Find the right idea
So when you want to find the right business idea, look for a problem to solve – not a product to build. The most successful startups solve real-world problems.
Your business idea will tell you:
• Which need will your business fulfill for the customers and what kind of customers will you attract?
• What good or service will your business sell?
• Who will your business sell to?
• How is your business going to sell its goods or services?
• How much will your business depend upon and impact the environment?
2/ Validate your idea
Market validation is the process of determining if there’s a need for your product in your target market. Validating your business idea can enable you to reasonably predict whether people will buy your product or service and whether your business will be profitable. Harvard business school
5 STEPS TO DETERMINE MARKET VALIDATION
1. Write Down Goals, Assumptions, and Hypotheses
Ask yourself:
- What’s the value of my product?
- Who’s the target audience, and what assumptions have I made about them?
- What differentiates my product from existing ones?
- What hypotheses do I have about my product, pricing, and business model?
2. Assess Market Size and Share
Understanding market size helps you distinguish between two categories: the addressable market, which is the total revenue opportunity for your product or service; and the available market, which is the portion of the addressable market for which you can realistically compete.
3. Research Search Volume of Related Terms
Another way to gauge the market validity of your business idea is to research the monthly search volume of terms related to your product or mission. When consumers need a product or service, they often use a search engine to see what the market has to offer
4. Conduct Customer Validation Interviews
Conducting interviews with your target market segment can be an effective way to learn about your product’s potential
5. Test Your Product or Service
Product testing is the process of gathering feedback directly from customers or potential customers about a product.
3. Create an overview of your idea and business model in a canvas
The original Business Model Canvas was created by Alexander Osterwalder and is a popular tool among many entrepreneurs. It focuses solely on developing your business model.
4. Find a business name
Make it catchy, memorable, and simple.
Here are business name generators that can help you brainstorm:
2/Building stage
1. Evaluate the market with a SWOT analysis
A SWOT analysis investigates the Strengths and Weaknesses of your business (internal) and the Opportunities and Threats in the market (external).
2/Form your business legally and get the necessary permits and licenses
Depending on what country you’re in, you can form different types of businesses, which need to meet different requirements.
So, how to register your business in Sudan?
Procedures | time to complete | cost |
APPLIES TO WOMEN ONLY: Obtain husband’s permission to leave the house to register the company | 1 day | no charge |
Apply for registration and reserve a company name | 3 days | 280 SDG |
Notarize the memorandum and articles of association | 2 days | 500SDG |
Notify the taxation chambers | 1 day | 0.2% of start-up capital |
Register with the commercial registry | 4days | 1050SDG |
Apply for a tax identification number (TIN) | 1 day | 5 SDG |
Register for VAT | 2 days | no charge |
Register with the labor authorities | 14 days | 192 SDG |
Make a company seal | 2 days | 1450 |
3/ find a co-founder
here are 5 reasons why?
- 1. Having a co-founder means having someone to share everything with
- 2/Co-founding teams grow their customer base three times as fast as solo-founded startups
- 3. Co-founding teams are less likely to scale too quickly
- 4. Startups with more than one founder generally appeal more to investors
- 5. Co-founded startups massively outperforms solo founded ones
4/Write a startup business plan
The primary purpose of a business plan is to establish your plans for the future. These plans should include goals or milestones alongside detailed steps of how the business will reach each step. The process of creating a roadmap to your goals will help you determine your business focus and pursue growth.
3/ Prelaunch stage
1. Start building your brand and marketing your solution
- Start blogging
- build a social media presence
- Write articles, guest blog posts
- Make your own podcast start networking
2. Build a website
Websites are an essential tool for businesses to establish their credibility and build trust with their customers.
If you don’t know how to build a website yourself, sites like SquareSpace and WordPress offer templates to make it easier.
3. Set up key metrics
They give you a way to evaluate the steps you took in the past and let you adjust your path before taking the next steps. So before you launch anything, set up key metrics.
Valuable metrics to keep track of include:
- Website traffic
- Leads
- Product trials
- Conversions
- Sales
4. Find the right business partners
you may need consultants to develop and maintain your app, a distributor to distribute your product in the right places or a supplier.
Here is what you need to know to make choosing a partner a step towards success:
- Find someone you genuinely enjoy, like, and trust
- Find someone who shares your values
- Find someone with a complementary set of skills and trait
5. Set up a bookkeeping system
Bookkeeping involves the recording, on a regular basis, of a company’s financial transactions. … With proper bookkeeping, companies are able to track all information on their books to make key operating, investing, and financing decisions. Bookkeepers are individuals who manage all financial data for companies.
4. Launch stage
- learn how to sell
- Make a launch plan
- Consider how to pivot
5. Growth stage
The growth stage is the period during which the product eventually and increasingly gains acceptance among consumers, the industry, and the wider general public. During this stage, the product or the innovation becomes accepted in the market, and as a result sales and revenues start to increase. for more information read our blog post about growth hacking
Resources:
- https://www.cuttles.io/startup-academy/courses/partnering-up-find-a-co-founder-for-your-startup
- https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/market-validation
- https://www.cuttles.io/startup-academy/courses/how-to-start-a-business-from-scratch
- https://medium.com/@shengyuchen/problem-interviews-9982fb4cf3
- https://startupnation.com/start-your-business/validate-business-idea/
- https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/217368