Creating a Business Plan
This may sound obvious, but this is something that many people fail to do when starting a business. I always get a nice notebook for each business I am starting. This is something I would highly recommend that you do, especially for the planning stages. Write down what your business model will look like, what your expenses will be, how quickly you will start making money and most importantly who are your customers and how you will obtain them. You need to get a full picture in your mind of what you need to do to get where you want to be. Do not half ass this or your business is almost sure to fail. You must understand there are people who have most likely been in your industry for much longer than you and you are competing directly against them for your share of the market. Do not fear this but understand that you must be able to compete with others that wish to do the same thing and because of this you must be prepared.
Things to do.
- Get a nice notebook that will last. I always like the pleather binded ones and they are pretty cheap.
- Write down your business model, what will your start up look like? Will you need a website? Will you need a physical location for your business and how big if so? What will your startup expenses be? Who is your target audience? How will you obtain customers? How long will it take to profit with your business?
- Do Your Research on Competitors! Go online and search everything you can about the most successful brands in your industry. I am sure you have heard the saying Cheat Copy Steal. This is exactly what you must do when starting a business. Find out how they market, what they charge for their services, how you can make the business more personal or better in any way on your scale. What does their website look like? What social media platforms do they use? Write all of these things down on a separate page in your notebook as well as how you will apply the things you found.
Example of this work-
Black Sheep Project
A Streetwear Brand where profit is used to educate and help those who were forgotten
Main place of business- Social Media and our website
Startup expenses- Our budget is $50,000 for marketing the project before our first release. I will use this to grow a community of people who believe in our mission and want to help our cause by purchasing our clothes.
Target Audience- People who may feel lost in life, that may have been through hard times and are looking for a way out or people who have already found a way out and want to support the cause by buying our products.
Obtaining customers- From the research I have one it seems Instagram, Tik Tok, Facebook, Reddit, and YouTube will all be great places to start marketing our project. I will pay for ads on different platforms, make use of bots that send out messages to make people aware, pay to have interviews made from bigger communities on YouTube, I will hold giveaways to our community for spreading the word about our project.
This was of course just an example of what this step may look like for you. From this page or so of text and minimal research I have a great understanding of what our business will be, how I will get customers and what my competitors are doing. Any business that hopes to be successful will have a good understanding of these things and this is a great place to start that will bring you so much closer to making your dream into a reality.