First Steps to Take When Considering Your Own Start Up
Over the past year, many of us have experienced a whole lot of struggle and financial hardship as a direct result of the coronavirus and Covid-19 pandemic. This pandemic has turned many of our worlds upside down. Of course, concerns about our own health and others’ health, along with issues such as loneliness and isolation, have topped many of our lists of concerns. But financial struggle has been a huge factor too! Many people have found themselves losing their jobs, being made redundant, or living on reduced incomes due to decreased salaries or reduced working hours. If you’re looking for a way to make extra money and change your path, starting up your own business could be a great option. This gives you more control over your income and allows you to profit from your own hard work, rather than building someone else’s fortune for them. Here are a couple of steps to take to get started!
Separating Your Personal and Professional Finances
Another big step to take before you get properly started is to make sure that you register your company with Companies House. While this isn’t an essential step, it will help you to officially form your company and will ensure that your business is its own, legal entity, separated from you and your personal finances and assets. A lot of us have experienced financial hardship over the past year and are more than familiar with the experience of losing things that we didn’t want to lose. Chances are, you don’t want to experience this again. By officially forming your company, you ensure that should your business experience failure, its finances remain separate from yours. This means that your own assets and money won’t be seized or used to pay off your company’s debts. This is a great way to protect your personal finances, personal property and personal belongings. If your business does fail, it can simply be dissolved or go bankrupt.
Consider Areas to Outsource
You can’t do absolutely everything yourself. You’re going to need to outsource certain tasks to others too. These can include
- Web design
- Graphic design
- Copywriting
- Product photography
- Quality business IT solutions
Carry Out Market Research
Of course, you need to make sure that you have a good product or service to sell to the consumer market. It’s likely that you have an idea of a product or service in mind, and you can have all the best intentions and a great work ethic, but if nobody is interested in what you have to offer, you will likely waste a lot of money if you jump straight into manufacturing and sales tactics. Instead, you need to ensure that you carry out plenty of research. Talking to your target demographic and getting their thoughts on your ideas will help you to determine people would genuinely be interested in purchasing what you’re planning on selling. It can also give you an idea of how much they’re willing to pay, helping you to get an idea of whether you can make a decent profit margin.
These are just two steps you should definitely take on the path to starting up your own company. They’ll really help you to get started off on the right foot!