Dos and don’ts before starting a business enterprise

Do’s

1. Table of Contents

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   Give a second thought to your decision:

Starting a startup is in vogue nowadays. There is nothing wrong if you dream of owning a successful business. But to turn this dream into reality, you should be dedicated enough. Spend hours and days to think and polish your business idea and acumen, have a concrete business idea and think of ways to execute it.

Think about the funding, great team, and a lavish office. Along with these decisions, think of challenges and problems too that you will be facing while starting the business and how you are going to deal with those challenges.

Introspect yourself and assess what areas you are lacking and calculate the risk. Try to acquire those set of skills which you are lacking. Take a well-thought decision to have a smooth and successful entrepreneurial journey.

2. Take an opinion from your family and friends:

Discuss your business idea with your family and friends as support of family and friends is always a blessing. You can imagine them as your virtual customers, investors or team members for a moment and see whether they are conceived with your idea and business model or not. Market and sell them your business idea.

Ensure that you are prepared with answers to their prospective questions as if you are not able to answer their queries, it is a thumb down for you.

3. Find a mentor:

As you are going to be the first time entrepreneur, your journey will be full of ups and downs. A mentor can help you in varied ways and can be your morale booster. To find a mentor, you can attend startup events, meet new people and try to gauge the compatibility between you and a potential mentor.

4. Start networking with industry people:

Knowledge comes from many sources and one of the best sources is from people. The more people you meet the more aware you will be. It is the strongest way of building your reputation.

5. Make financial arrangement for your personal expenses and all your liabilities:

At every stage of your business life, you will have to meet the expenses. Come up with an estimate with the potential expenses and the sources to fund it in advance.

6. Do your own market research:

Market research is the most essential thing that you must carry out to sense the mood of customers, investors, and other market players. It needs to be done as early as possible because it gives you information about the size of the market, customer, competition and more.

7. Validate your business idea:

Instead of finalizing the plan in a haphazard manner, you should consider validating the idea you have for starting a business so that you can understand the threats that you may have to face in future along with the benefits that you can get from it.

To validate your business idea, you can take feedback from your close networks, meet a few clients, and then analyze the data you collected. For the purpose, you can also make a prototype of your product and share with industry people, and others to analyze their feedback.

8. Documentation

Document everything as a workable business idea to get more clarity about your business idea.

9. Create your team:

Without a team, it is hard and challenging to get to where you want to reach. Choose your team members wisely and ensure that you have a great team who are willing to work with you for a common goal to make the business success.

Don’ts

1. Don’t quit your existing job:

If you are in a job, never leave that job until you are completely prepared with your business plan. Continue with your existing job until you are on the verge of executing it because leaving it will drastically impact your source of income and on your savings.

2. Don’t create unnecessary financial liabilities:

In the formative stages, your startup will be totally dependent on your savings and in this case you cannot take any major risk. So don’t increase your financial burden too much.

3. Don’t compromise on the team building:

Your team is your major strength, and therefore you can’t afford to compromise on it in any manner. Choose your team members wisely.

4. Don’t share the complete business idea:

Your business idea should be a secret, never commit a mistake to disclose your whole business idea. Don’t share too many details with anyone as people can steal your idea and in the end, you will be the one who is emptied hands.

5. Don’t form or create any legal business entity:

Don’t create any legal business entity like a partnership or private limited company at the initial stage; wait till the things start rolling in your favor. In case you change your mind later, it will be hard to close the company due to a lot of liquidation formalities and legal procedures.

6. Don’t make any long-term financial investment:

Do not make Long-term investments in the initial stages as your business is full of risks and uncertainties at this point and you might land up in a situation of financial crunch.

7. Don’t move to a new city:

Shifting to a new place just to start your business is not a good idea as a familiar place gives you a comfort and easy access to things.

8. Don’t get into a new relationship:

Most of the times, your personal life impacts your professional life in a great way. So, when you are struggling to start a new business, it is never a good idea to get into a new relationship. Your emotional health has the direct link with your mental health and so it is always better not to take a risk. If you still cannot resist, maintaining a proper balance between your work and relationship should be your first and utmost priority.