How in the World do You Start Your Own Business?

I know it can often be tricky to start your own business. There are so many things to accomplish and at least for me, I had no idea where to start. My whole life I have been entrepreneurial minded and enjoy creating something from nothing (Or making things in a new and better way).

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to go to many entrepreneurial events for Brigham Young University's 'E-Week.' It was fantastic! I really enjoyed listening to people present about their unique ideas, and to hear from veterans who have successfully started multiple companies. The event that ended up helping me the most was on the last day. It was more of a social networking event where different organizations had their booths set up. Briana and I met with all of them. We learned about tons of different opportunities right here in Provo to help young entrepreneurs get started.

I want to share about one of these organizations, the Small Business Development Center. There are a ton of them in Utah with the closest (To BYU) being right by Wal-Mart in Orem.

I had researched for hours about the products that I want to create, I researched about competition and other factors. I came fairly prepared to learn and ask questions about what my next steps should be.

I met with Eddy, he was incredibly helpful. The questions he answered for my business are not the questions that you will need answered so I will not go into too much detail. After we had discussed my plans and goals he gave me five things to focus on in the coming weeks to prepare myself to progress and reach my goals.

 He broke down the work I needed to do in the short term into two categories, legal and management.

1. Legal, this is the simple and straightforward part. It is actually pretty easy to reserve your company name, and register your business online. This will provide you with a Certificate of Organization and a business number. This can be fairly costly, the SBDC helps students with the financial side of starting a new business. At this point you can apply for a business license and see if you will need (if it would be beneficial) to have business insurance. The next step would be to set up a separate business bank account. He recommended using a credit union over a bank.
2. Management is the more difficult part. This includes creating a business plan and a marketing plan. I will share a helpful resource in creating a business plan here in a bit. The marketing plan consists of determining solutions aka products and services that your business will create to solve customer pains and problems. It is important to identify a target market, to figure out who will be potentially purchasing your product and what features are important to them. It is really easy to come up with an idea that you think it great, but it is not always perceived that way by the consumer. It can be difficult to determine what to do in order to find information that will help you develop the right product. The first step would be to research online and see what it already out there, and then get out and talk to people! (Preferably random people, friends and family tend to tell you what you want to hear not what you need to hear).

Eddy gave me specific things to do, first to check out www.Google.com/patents. This contains a database of patents, it will let you know if someone else is already working on your idea. 

He suggested that I get started right away on my business plan, and to detail it the best I could in my early phase. An amazing resource available is www.bplans.com, they have many different examples and a format that you can download to get started. I would also recommend this guide: http://articles.bplans.com/how-to-write-a-business-plan/. 

And last but not least, Eddy encouraged me to continue researching, to always ask questions and seek out answers. 

I highly recommend the Utah SBDC as a starting point for those who want to be entrepreneurs. It has helped me go in the right direction. I have figured out what I want to do and how I want to execute. I have the chance to build a model and present in front of investors this month, I still do not know much, nothing really. I do believe in myself and am willing to work to make it happen. Just living the dream.

Check out my other blog at http://munk-isip.blogspot.com/