Starting from scratch

Businesses are tough beasts and will eat you alive if not careful. This is why it is so important to learn the ins and outs of business before going out on your own.

In the SMB segment, the owner often becomes sales, marketing, IT, Business Dev, and everything else and then has to figure out how to scale from a relatively small state into a business that can support itself with cash flow.

The idea

From experience, this all starts around a problem you want to solve and how it's novel relative to the rest of the market.

Starting from here, we want to do reasonable due diligence on market research and formulate the idea into an offering we can communicate to others before we ever leave the safety and security of the current job.

This includes:

1. Size of the target market we're breaking into
2. Competitors we're maneuvering - You should always have competitors period, even if it's just a loose comparison to show there's demand for your product.
3. Pricing structure - What is the value you provide to clients and how is the price communicated relative to the value provided?
4. Financial projections - How much money do you expect to make and what are your plans to get there?
5. Growth plans - Products rarely work in isolation and you will likely need to make partnerships to get to truly big cash flow. Who do you plan to partner with in the ecosystem to get there?

Execution

When you start from scratch, you have to validate everything and I mean everything.

What you say, how you present, the text on the website, whom you think the client is, social profiles, etc. all need scrubbed clean and communicated in a way your target client thinks and feels.

For myself, I've personally found that I'm too close to the problem to have an objective view on communication so I generally ask for help on this section.

As things are validated though, you'll begin to attract a better stream of people and they'll be able to empower you to greater heights.

Sharing in the spoils

The last thing I want to highlight here is to be willing to share equity in the business.

It's only one and there's always more if everything goes well.

I think of it this way, I'd rather have 10% of a 9-figure business than 100% of a 6-figure business.

At that point, at least my net worth is in the 8-figures and I don't have to operate as inefficiently as if I were at 6-figures.

Wrapping up

Though we've reviewed this a lot in our time together, it stands to come back every so often given the complexities of the working world.

Good due diligence at the start will ensure you aren't getting out of hand, proper execution and help will get you to where the business can properly be, and sharing in the spoils ensures everyone feels the relationship is worthwhile.