How to set up a business

A few weeks ago I was fortunate enough to have been asked to deliver a talk on how to set up a business at QE Boys, the leading state school in the country!?

I had a great time during the assembly and it inspired me to write about some of the key steps in setting up a business from my experience, in case this is of interest to anyone in my network.

1) Identify a problem first before you come up with a solution?

A lot of people want to set up businesses and they want to be entrepreneurs and so they come up with really nice, exciting sounding business ideas, for example leveraging tech like AI, blockchain, VR, or thinking about running a global organisation etc. however rarely do people actually take a step back and ask themselves what is the problem they are actually trying to solve with their business solution.

The first tip I would share is first identify the problem you are passionate about and on the back of this come up with solutions. In terms of identifying what you are passionate about I would recommend reflecting on what keeps you up at night, what are you angry about, where have you felt you’ve been held back growing up and this is a great place to start where you have a personal relationship with the problem.

One of the main reasons businesses fail is because they haven’t done the market research to gauge if there a gap in the market and needs provision or demand for their product or service. Once you’ve identified your problem/s you then need to do market research by talking to relevant people related to your problem and solution, looking at research reports, googling information etc. to understand how big the problem is and whether there is a market for a solution here which has legs and can make money.

For example, my experiences growing up LGBT+ in certain homophobic environments and working as a staff member in my early 20s supporting students form lower socio economic backgrounds made me realise the the role that relatable role models and career support play in helping diverse young people launch successful careers and lives. This inspired me to start Career Accelerator to work with diverse young people and provide them with relatable role models and career supports to prepare for successful futures.?

2) Identify your business goals (the what)

Once you’ve identified a problem and a solution (your business) you then have to come up with goals for your business.?

When you run a business your business should have a vision, a mission and also more short term tangible goals.

I think it’s important to identify what does good look like for you personally. For example, some people like myself are super happy and proud running a small and medium sized business generating 6 figures and having a good social impact. Other people are more focused on running a business generating 7 or 8 or 10 figures, or running a global businesses with less social impact and that’s completely fine and legitimate as well.?

For example, at Career Accelerator our business goals concern things such as: how many business partners we have, how many school partners we have and our revenue targets.?

3) Coming up with a business strategy (the how)

The business strategy helps you make a plan for how you’re going to achieve your business goals. E.g. making money, delivering impact, scaling nationally etc.?

For example, It’s important to think about your business model. i.e. how your business makes money. Anyone can come up with a nice idea for a business, but ultimately it needs to make money in order to survive and achieve its potential. Questions you need to ask include: is your business going to get money from other businesses (business to business) or customs (business to consumers), government, investors etc. and make sure this all adds up.?

For example, at Career Accelerator we get our funding from our business partners who we support with employee engagement, social impact opportunities and inter-company collaboration. This means we don’t need to change our young people for getting involved meaning we can run a sustainable business generating good revenue to survive and grow, whilst also making a social impact by helping young people from diverse backgrounds.?

4) Try and get business support and seed funding

There is often an image of an individual in their garage coming up with an idea, a light bulb moment happens and the rest is history. They get the credit and recognition and they are seen as changing the world or putting a dent in the universe. However in pretty much all cases there is a team, community and network behind every entrepreneur and business startup story.

The good news is in today’s world because so many people are starting businesses or part of startups there is a huge start up support scene providing entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs with training, funding, business support etc. to launch their business. Many of these are called accelerator programmes where entrepreneurs often get a years worth of training, funding, introductions and wider support, to help set up and launch their business. I benefited from quite a few of these and would recommend them to anyone who wants to start something up. Some examples include Entrepreneur First, the Fair Education Alliance Awards (programmes), Barclays Black Founders etc. There are so many smart, talented and inspiring people you can learn from and the good thing about accelerator programmes is you get to learn form others and also possibly collaborate with them in the long run. It can also be very reassuring to find people who are doing similar things to you or who have done similar things to you to validate your idea and motivate and inspire you to pursue this.

Similarly it helps having some seed funding which means early stage funding to help launch your business and do a pilot. This can come from friends, family, your network, this can come from personal savings, and this can come from crowdfunding and pitch events.

For example, it was through the pre-accelerator programme Year Here where I worked at a state school as a staff member and came up with the idea of Career Accelerator. During the Year Here programme I got to pitch at a live crowd funding event where I secured ￡6K grant funding to pilot my business idea. After this it was through going through accelerator programmes like the Innovation Award where I was able to further understand the problem Career Accelerator was trying to address, how to work with and sell to businesses, how to design impactful outreach programmes, how to measure impact and how to put together impact reports and scale our work. When I took part in the Innovation Award I was given ￡15K as part of the programme to pay for my salary over 6 months, whilst I figure our how to make Career Accelerator sustainable and able to generate other streams of revenue to pay myself (and my future team) moving forward. On the back of the Innovation Award I learnt how to set to businesses and started to bring in more ￡5K and ￡10K partnerships per business in my first few years, which eventually grew to ￡10K/￡20K/￡30K/￡45K partnerships in the later years.?

5) Pilot your product/service

One of the big rules about setting up a business is eventually sooner than later you should really put your ideas out there and pilot what you have even if it’s an early stage prototype.

There is a great book called The Lean Startup which popularised the notion of coming up a minimum viable product (MVP), an easy to test version of your final aspirational product or service. It’s important to test and iterate until you have your great product and service to go to market and make you money and grow your business.

So many people have business ideas but keep it to themselves, tell a few friends but don’t ever test it and consequently they never launch a business. A mantra to sum this up is: ‘too much analyse leads to paralysis’.?

For example, during my first year running Career Accelerator I piloted with 10 students at a school in Elephant and Castle with around 10 employee volunteers from a range of firms. Fortunately the feedback from both parties was positive and this helped prove the concept of Career Accelerator. Then in Year 2 I worked with around 40 students and 3 businesses. In year 3 I worked with 100 students and 6 businesses and so on. 6 years down the line, Career Accelerator now works with between 300-400 young people and 25 businesses per year.?

6) Measure and showcase your impact

Once you’ve run your pilot it’s important you collect feedback, measure this against your intended outcomes and then put together some form of impact report to show to your clients and wider stakeholders.

There is little point in working hard if you can’t prove your business’s product or service is successful or not. If you want to work with you clients again you need to show value you’re bringing them from engaging with your product or service.

For example at Career Accelerator we have specific outcomes we want to achieve for the young people involved in our programmes and also the employee volunteers who take part in our programmes. At the end of our programmes we put together impact reports to highlight what we did, the impact for both parties, what went well and what could be improved, which we use to help scale our partnerships moving forward.?

7) Get your first few paying clients

I’m a big fan of the notion that business is all about friendship. In order to run a successful business you need to have good relationships and paying clients.

You can find them through networking events, conferences, social media, LinkedIn, paid ads and so on. In order to find paying clients it’s really important to invest in relationships building skills, emotional intelligence and selling skills.?

Often if you’re fortunate you will find clients who admire you and your work and would be keen to become your champions and they can support your work through facilitating introductions to other clients and others business support.

For example at Career Accelerator I developed paid partnerships with LinkedIn, Vodafone and Just Eat Takeaway through a combination of networking events (e.g. Out in Tech), speaking gigs (e.g. in collaboration with Stonewall) and introductions. Fortunately our pilots with these 3 business went well and over time LinkedIn helped us get into Microsoft, Vodafone helped us get into Cisco and Just Eat Takeaway helped us get into GoCardless and Onfido.?

8) Build a team

No one grows a business just by themselves, there is usually always a great team behind them in one form or another.

As your business grows you are going to have to hire people or work with people in order to fulfil increased demand, provide your services and also to make things things are sustainable and you don’t burn out. Common core functions to have in a business include e.g marketing, sales, strategy, admin, operations, HR, finance etc.

The good news is this doesn’t just mean forking out lots of money for full time staff members. Nowadays not everyone wants a 9-5, Monday-Friday job. Some people and happy and like being freelancers or working part time etc. and consequently you can build a great team with less cost, whilst leveraging a variety of talented people - full time workers, part time workers, freelancers etc. depending on what support your business needs.

For example, at Career Accelerator it was just me running the business for the first 4 years. I wouldn’t have been able to carry on running it sustainably if I didn’t start building a team. My first hire was a Virtual Assistant, followed by a Head of Youth Programmes, Finance Manager, Marketing Manager, Marketing Assistant, a Youth Programme Officer, a PR freelancer and 2 volunteer ambassadors.

9) Develop your business’s brand and your brand

The more you grow your business, the more you should grow your business’s brand but also your personal brand so that people hear about your business and you and want to work together.

Having a strong brand means that people find out about you, inquire about working together and use your services, as it increases trust and credibility. The dream is eventually as opposed to spending lots of time reaching out to prospective clients, going to networking evens and conferences etc. your prospect clients come to you and want to work with you due to your great marketing and branding.

More than just your business brand, it’s also important to consider investing in your personal brand which is what people think go when they think of you. People are humans and they often buy into people first not the business first. Therefore if you have strong visibility, are well known and well respected etc. this will have huge pay offs for your business. You can build this through LinkedIn, speaking gigs, writing articles and books, media appearances, PR support etc.?

For example, I grew Career Accelerator’s brand through sharing updates of our work on Linkedin and Twitter, being a speaker and speaking about Career Accelerator at conferences, representing Career Accelerator at exhibition events, working with a PR freelancer to help get us more press etc. I built my own personal brand through attending networking events and conferences, writing on LinkedIn, being a speaker, focusing on more niche areas of work, e.g. LGBT+ mentoring and Neurodiversity and Disability mentoring, and organising inter company roundtables and dinners.?

10) Scale your business in the future

Once you’ve successfully done the above (e.g. come up with the business idea, piloted it, built a team) the next step can be around scaling your business if you want to.

Once you’ve built a strong foundation, you should be able to hire people, work with more customers, invest in new products and services and even possibly take on investment and go global if that’s what your interested in.

That said not everyone wants to and should scale and that’s fair as well. Some would say if you’ve go a good thing going for you why rock the boat and scale unnecessarily if it causes more stress. Everyones definition of success is different and that’s fine and legitimate.?

For example, at Career Accelerator our definition of scale is slowly and steadily growing our business partnerships and our business revenue, working with more mentors and mentees every year, expanding the niche areas of our work around LGBT+ mentoring and Neurodiversity and Disability mentoring, growing our team 1 person at a time etc. and this works really well for us.?