You’ve examined your personal foundation, come up with your brilliant business idea and written a business plan. Here are some steps before you can officially launch your business. Before launching your company, make sure that you’ve covered all the bases in the following key areas:
- Infrastructure – One of the things to do to get up and running is to create your businesss workspace. This involves finding the location where you will run your business, and setting up the resources and tools you will need to maintain your business day to day, including utilities, hardware and software.
- Marketing – All of the planning you have done so far for your business will be expressed creatively in marketing collateral, such as your logo, website, business cards, and flyers. You can make basic versions of these things yourself, but your brand will benefit from working with experts if you dont have a background in design. While some of these experts can be expensive, there are also cost effective alternatives that will still get you great looking marketing materials.
- Legal and Accounting – In order to begin making and accepting payments for your business, you will have to set bank accounts for your company. You may need Non-Disclosure Agreements for your team as well as anyone else you discuss your business with, to make sure your all-important trade secrets stay under wraps. You will need insurance in order to protect your company from any unforeseen accidents and have to choose and set up your business entity, which could be a Sole Proprietorship, LLC, or another type of entity.
- Government – In order to officially get your business up and running, there are several documents that you must file with your city, state, or federally. The most commonly needed government documents are a Federal Tax Identification Number, a Business License, Fictitious Business Name, and Sellers Permit. Patents, trademarks, or copyrights which may or may not be needed depending on the nature of your business.
Once you’ve completed these activities, and anything else you believe should be taken care of before you share your business with the world, you’ll be ready to launch. Remember, the more thorough you are here the better prepared your company will be for obstacles, and therefor the more successful you’ll be. The months following this will focus on creating leads and marketing your company.
Take a look at our Sample Business Plans and Products.