Starting a business can be challenging and require tremendous time and dedication, but it can also be a rewarding experience. There are numerous aspects to starting a small business which makes it impossible to try to sum up starting a business in a list and requires effort, sacrifice and risk. (According to the SBA 7 out of 10 new businesses survive the first two years, half will survive 5 years, and one-third at least 10 years.)
Simply Svcs is a small business that I worked on standing up. It was established to be an end to end provider of solutions and services to other small businesses like bookkeeping, payroll and/or advertising support to help them run their business or provide small scale quick win consulting solutions. Below are some pointers that can help those who are thinking about starting a small business.
Fill a need
Inspiration can come from anywhere, but if you want to start a small business find a need for a product or service and fill that need. How the idea for Simply Svcs came up was realizing that small business owners and potential entrepreneurs normally do not have access to individuals with business knowledge and experience. There was a need that no one else was filling. The premise of Simply Svcs is handling business affairs so that small business owners can do what they do best.
Finding funding
Startup costs for Simply Svcs were small, about $3,000 for state fees for incorporation, marketing materials, trademark, and a domain name for a website. The funding came from rainy day funds and savings. If you want to start a small business or micro enterprise you might be surprised that it may not require as much funding as you would believe. You can also apply for a micro loan with small business micro lenders who can help you get started.
The greatest challenges
Starting a business presents very different challenges and these challenges will always differ from business to business and will also depend on what kind of small business you are starting. The greatest challenge in starting Simply Svcs was in keeping things simple or not trying to make everything 110% perfect.
What does success look like?
Each individual that starts a small business will have different definitions of success based on different criteria like number of customers or in which year they break even. We defined success for Simply Svcs by setting a few goals in our first year such as number of mixers attended, number of clients, level of customer service, and a point in time for breaking even.
It’s been three or six months, what now?
Remember that the assumption for any business is that it is a going concern that it will continue to operate indefinitely. Plan out your year, if you don’t hit goals in the first three months reexamine what’s working and what is not. Sometimes it may take a few months for things to materialize. After six months we did a Stop, Start and Continue for Simply Svcs. We stopped things that weren’t working; started things we needed to do and continued the things that were working.
These are just a few things to keep in mind when starting your own small business. Remember, there are no right or wrong answers, success will depend on what you set your goals for.