Starting a business is one of the most exciting things you can do in your life. However, a lack of experience can lead to low confidence which holds you back.
The good news is that it’s never been easier to start a business and it’s not as difficult as you imagine. The final destination might feel far off to you right now, but things will seem less overwhelming if you break your business journey down into manageable steps.
The truth is: all business owners have a lot to learn. In fact, all businesses are problems to be solved and every successful business continues evolving and learning.
The single most important factor is the belief that you can find the solutions and the confidence to tackle the challenges you face.
Let Duport be your guide
Part of the role we play is to help you find those solutions quickly and point you in the right direction. You may be starting your own business, but you definitely are not on your own!
Just one of the ways we help our clients is with a detailed Industry Insights guide which could save you months of research.
This includes:
- Required qualifications
- Market issues and trends
- Legal and trading information
- Business rates
- Marketing advice
- How to invoice and charge for your services
- Important trade bodies in your sector
- Advice on sourcing equipment and finding premises
Your first business steps
Step 1: Understand your motivations
The standard advice is to create a business plan for your idea, but we don’t think you should run before you can walk. It’s more helpful to start with understanding yourself better.
Once you understand your core reasons and motivations for starting a business, your business plan will have a better foundation.
Questions to consider:
- What are your motivations for starting?
- What are your values?
- What are your skills?
- What do you enjoy doing and what don’t you enjoy doing?
Step 2: Research your business idea
Once you have a good understanding of what you would like to achieve and why, it’s time to conduct some research into your business idea:
Questions to answer:
- How big is the market?
- What’s the competition?
- Who exactly are your customers and what are their pain points?
- How will you improve things or do things differently?
Step 3: Write your Business Plan
Now you’ve completed both these steps, you’re ready to begin writing a business plan. This should break down the processes you need to get your business off the ground, step by step. It’s good practice to continually review your plan as your business evolves.
We recommend beginning this planning stage whilst you are still working for someone else. You can get off to a flying start by protecting your company name, claiming your detailed industry report and registering the matching email address for future use. And don’t worry – the entire process is completely confidential!
Starting a new business with no experience
Just because this is new territory for you, doesn’t mean that you don’t have all the skills to start up and run your own business. Now you’ve worked through the initial 3 steps, and got yourself a business plan, the next stage is to think about what type of company you want to run and whether you should set up as a Sole Trader or a Limited Company.
And if you’re not sure, we can help! Our 60 second Start-Up Quiz will help you understand what company structure will work best for you.
