Step 1

Come up with a business idea

This is not as difficult as it may seem. In fact, you may already have an idea. It is best to pick something that you are passionate about. You are going to be working in your business for a lot of hours, so please make sure that you will enjoy yourself while you are there. You don’t have to be an expert in it already, but you do need to have a passion for it. That passion will give you the fuel to keep going when you hit bumps in the road.

• If you are not sure what to do, look around you at other businesses and see if there is something that you might enjoy doing.
• Look around at your friends and family. Are there any problems that they are currently having that you might be able to solve for them? If they have that problem, others will also have that problem too.
• Do you see a gap in the market? This is when you find yourself saying I wish there was a …. Or wouldn’t it be great if this (product) did this…? You fill in the blank.

You do not need to be completely unique in the marketplace. So, for instance, think of all the accountants, solicitors, marketing professionals there are in London. There are thousands of them. However, they have all found a niche to serve (see Step 2).

Step 2

Decide who you are going to serve

So, think carefully about your business idea. Who would you like to serve? What people would you like to work with? What industries do you like or have experience in? It’s not hard to find your niche, but it is critical that you pick one. This will help you in your marketing and messaging, and it will make it far easier for you to sell your products and services.  

Step 3

Decide what problems you are solving

Now that you know who you will be serving, next you need to decide what problems you are solving for them. In other words, think about why they would buy from you and not someone else? What pain are you solving for your customers? This is also a critical question to ask and again getting this right means that customers will now start to seek you out, rather that you having to attract everyone to you.

You will want to be able to list out 3 – 10 problems that you are solving for them. To understand this better, think of the lifetime journey of that customer. So, for instance, if you are serving technology companies and your idea is to sell to small SME or young companies, think, what is their biggest problem right now? Once you have solved that, what will be their next problem? Then for instance think, well 2 years from now what will be their problems? This could be because they have grown and now have staff that need your technology solution, or they are moving into a larger building, or they are moving into a new market or location.

An even simpler one. Say you have decided to set yourself up in a carpet cleaning business. You could be going after homeowners, or landlords. Homeowners with carpets will want to get their carpets cleaned every 4 – 6 months. So, you can re-sell to those people. Landlords will want the carpets cleaner every time a new tenant moves in. So again, you can sell the same service to them multiple times. You could even replace or repair carpets as an additional service. You could also provide a polishing service for wood floors. Do you see how you can easily expand on your services and offerings by thinking about the problems that your customer has

These problems you solve and how often you solve them for each customer will dictate your business model (how you run your business) and how you market to your customers (existing and new) to make sure that you maximise on the money you can make.

Step 4

Develop your products and services

If you are developing a product. Then think, what will it look like, size, dimension, the material it is made out of, packaging to keep it safe in transit etc? You will need to build a prototype and test it. Does it work for the function it was developed for? If not, you’ll need to tweak your design and re-test. Once you have that you will need to find someone who can manufacture it for you. This could be here or abroad. It takes time to find the right manufacturer. You may even decide to produce it yourself.

Step 5

Get Proof of Concept

This is your market research phase. You do this before you do any planning, or marketing. This is where you take your product or service and offer it to your preferred customer type, and you test it. Did they like it or not? What do you need to change to make it better? How easy was it for you to service the client? What processes do you need to update to make the service excellent? What else did they want that you did not provide?

Hint: though it is nice that your friends and family like what you are doing, this is not a fair test. You need complete strangers, who don’t know you to test your product. This is how you get proof that your business idea will work. You will also want to test some pricing and make sure that the customer feels they are getting enough value to warrant the pricing that you have come up with. Get at least 3- 10 customers to review your product or service. It will fix a lot of things and will stop you from attempting to sell any product or service that the market just won’t buy.

Step 6

Set income targets for your business

This means 70% will be what it costs you to run your business. Therefore, to make £30,000 in profit you need to generate sales of £100,000. Now all you need to do is figure out a plan to generate that volume of sales. You can either increase your pricing or you can sell to more people. This simple calculation gives you an approximation of what you need to do in sales.

Step 7

Understand what resources you need 

Again, let’s keep this as simple as possible. You want to keep your resources to a minimum as you are in the start-up phase. So, think about what do you need around the following areas?

•  Personnel/outsource partners
• Resources: Stock / raw materials / equipment / furniture / technology
• Marketing: Branding / Website / lead generation / social media
• Manufacturing/operations
• Legal: contracts and intellectual property
• Money: You need to fund it

Once you list all this out. Then think, what do I really need now to get this off the ground? Do you need everything or are there some resources you can live without? We appreciate that you may not know what you do and don’t need at this stage. But a good, educated guess will get you most of the way there.

Step 8

Build a simple brand and marketing plan

Now we need to build a simple brand that works for that customer. This means getting to know your customer in detail. What do they like, not like, the language they use, the colours that suit them (and what you stand for)? This brand is what you put on your packaging, on your website, on your social media, and in any sales material that you send out. You don’t need to spend thousands of pounds creating this. Your brand will change as your business grows. This is a normal thing. It just needs to be good enough to look professional and build trust with your customer.

Step 9

Understand the budgets, finance and funding

It’s not sexy to do this, we know. But it is one of the most important tasks. By understanding your numbers, you can understand what you can and can’t do. Everyone starts with very little money, where they have to fund most of their start up personally or through sales. This is normal. We know you hear about grants, but most businesses cannot access these. And at the beginning, no investor will just give you cash based on an idea. 

Only once you have proof that people will buy your product or service can you get investors interested.

You want to understand your:

• Start up costs: (What you need to get going)
• Monthly fixed costs: that will be the same each month
• Variable costs: So, costs that change or only happen once a year or so.

List them all out for:

• Equipment & resources, raw materials
• Marketing & branding
• Rent and utilities
• Staffing and technology etc.
• Funding costs & set up costs.

 Whatever figure you come up with add on another 30 – 50%. This is to cover the costs you didn’t know about or costs what turn out to be higher than expected.

Once you know these then decide how you will fund it. Do you have savings? Can you get a loan? Can you use a credit card (be careful loading your card up). Is there funding you can access? (Link funding to the grants options.).

Step 10

Write a simple 1 page plan

Just expand on the following: 

• Partners: who is going to help you operate your business? (Accountant, delivery partner, technology provider, website builder etc.)
• What resources do you have / need? Expand on the above.
• Who are you offering your service to: Your target market.
• Offers to your customers: How will you entice your customer to buy from you?
• Marketing channels: Where will you place your advertising message?
• Revenue sources: How many products, at what price and how many to sell in the next year?
• Funding: How much cash you currently have, sales you will get, other funding sources, an understanding of your basic costs?

 That’s it. That is all you need for a start up plan.

Step 11

Build a simple project plan

This is where things become fun. Now that you have a basic plan you need to break it into actionable steps. This is the crucial part. You have to understand what you physically need to do and by when to achieve your goals. Doing this is easy. Firstly, understand what you need to have done by the year end (which you’ve already worked out) and then work backwards until you know what you need to do .

this month and this week to make that year end goal happen. Plan it out and write those actions into your diary. That’s it. Keep it simple.

Step 12

Action that plan

Step 13

review, analyse and re-tweak your project plan

On a weekly and monthly basis review your to do list. Did you get it all done? What new things need to be added to the list to keep you on track? Re-do your diary, put in the next actions. Use the feedback your customer and staff are giving you and keep moving forward. That’s it. You don’t need to spend months planning this.

Once you have your plan, just action it, review it, and rework it so that you stay on track to achieve your goals. Congratulations! You are now a business owner, and you are on your way to building that life of freedom, joy, and passion! The best of luck!

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