Friday 12 December 2008

Things to prepare for starting up a business

You have ideas on products and/or services that your business will focus on? You have saved enough money to cover expense for a beginning startup period of your business? You also get some initial customers?

Well, those are still not enough for a well-preparation of a startup business. There are much more things that are needed to prepare, keep updated and improved during the life you setup and run a business.

The set of work and tips can be varied from business to business, from individual business owner to another. List below are based on my experience and from a link that I found simple, interesting but sufficient information.

a. Start building up your profile
A website which states clearly vision, list of service/products you provide, how to contact you are a good start for building up the profile.
Also, a pre-sales document package also needs to be built up. It can include a company introduction profile, a product introduction profile, a service introduction profile, user guides, product/service feature list or anything that you think is useful to let others/clients know more and detail about your business

b. Watch your cash flow
Be very careful with the cash flow. In business, there are many things from small to large that need to be handled and it is important to manage the cash within your budget.

c. Use your existing network
One of my friend introduce the concept of “Business to business”, in which any existing business can bring you another business based on its’ current network. In broader view, it is useful to utilize any of your existing network including business, family, friends, colleague, social network for your business. One interaction or relationship can bring you up with many other connections. Although not all connections can be useful or directly or indirectly involved with your business and just simply imagine the number of connections that you can get by utilizing and also extending the existing connections.

d. Be easy to work with and corporate with others
If you just smile when working with others, it is not enough. Teamwork is a very key factor for achieving the goal. When either working within your company or your clients, be teamwork. Things are accomplished by contribution of a group, not a single individual. In order to teamwork well, in my experience, apart from good communication and high responsibility , you need to be corporate with others, eager to share the work and let others feel that they feel happy and easy to work with you.

f. Set your goal
Be SMART. Simply to remember, simple to understand, but efficiently get to the point
• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Time framed

g. Follow your passion
The word passion itself does cover the key factor for any entrepreneur. You may face success; you may encounter failure and difficulties. But, your passion will drive you to never give up, but learn and be success from failure.


References:

Bart De Waele (2008). 10 tips for starting entrepreneurs. Barcamp Ghent 2. Retrieved 2008-12-10 from http://barcampgent2.wikispaces.com

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