It is a new year and you’ve been thinking of how you can build a successful business but don’t know how or where to start. Let’s talk about that and see if you’ll learn something, or be inspired.
Some businesses fail because they’re following old blueprints which no longer work effectively to build their startup.
We’ve learned a lot between 2020 and 2021, and we’ve seen how businesses are affected by the ongoing Corona Virus pandemic. But ideas to start or build a business are waxing stronger in us, how are we going to bring these ideas to reality?
But is 2022 the right time to start a business?
Yes, it’s never too late to start a business in 2022 and you are still going to see rapid growth if you put in all the efforts.
Regardless of the Coronavirus and its variants, you’ll agree with me that starting and building a business these days is easier compared to a few years ago as a result of technology and more investors who’re ready to provide capital for a futuristic business plan.
According to a report, investors spent more than $140 billion to support startups in 2017 and the figures have increased ever since then till date. This shows how people like you are creating something or a platform that solves a ‘problem’ and how people are ready to support it.
If you’re also planning to launch your startup, you’re welcome, it’s never too late to be phenomenal.
Aside from investors who’re ready to invest, you don’t necessarily need to build your business by renting a big hall or apartment for office use, thanks to COVID-19, you can gather your team and work remotely, while you’re saving a lot of money that will go into office setup.
If you have a good business plan or startup idea and you’re worried about what to do next, the following tips will help you get started;
7 Tips to Build a Business in 2022
#1. Do Your Research and Understand Your Mission
You see, a lot of people see other people building stuff and they got jealous to build something too – this is a wrong motivation to start a business.
You have to think clearly about what you want to do, you ask yourself: “In what way(s) can this idea or business help people?” – emphasize “help people”.
If you want to start a fashion design company, do your research thoroughly and understand that you’re about to build a type of business some people have built already. So, how are you planning to get better and beat your competitors?
For instance, can you think of a unique fashion trend and dominate it for the long term? If yes, what fashion trend and how can you hit the market with your idea?
You have to plan all these, you just don’t voluntarily jump into the ocean without knowing if it’s safe or not. If it’s not safe, then how are you going to survive?
#2. Get a Team Members with Common Goals
The spirit of being the CEO and (sole) founder is part of what’s killing some businesses and startups to date. I’m not saying you can’t build a business alone, you can! But you can’t survive alone. If you survive alone, you won’t go far alone.
You have to understand this concept. If you read about big business builders in the world, you’ll notice one thing that’s very common to them – they don’t build alone!
Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, etc., will tell you that they called their friends when they were about to start their company. Why? It’s simply because they need teammates who can work with them to achieve their primary and respective goal(s).
The reason is simply that if one is falling, another person will lift him. And this boils down to you looking and calling the right people to join you or else if you fall, that’s the end of the business.
So look for the right people in your circle, during meetups, on social media, share the business idea with them and be patient to see those who’ll be ready to join you.
Getting team members here is different from hiring people. You have to look for someone or some people who’re ready to take ownership of the business and work diligently.
They can in turn be your co-founder, CTO, etc… Just make sure you’re careful and patient enough to see someone with the same common goal.
#3. Start Building with the Little You Have:
You know the type of business you want to build and you have someone or some people who are ready to work with you. The next thing is to start building that business with the little resources you have.
The mistake most people make is that they’re waiting for the “perfect time” and that time translate to when they have sufficient money to invest in the business. The truth is that that perfect time won’t come unless you start now.
And I will like to say this if you’re starting a new business but you don’t have money to invest personally, you’re still not going anywhere. It’s either you get a job, make money and come back to that idea or, you sell the business idea to someone else.
The bottom line is that you have to start from you, even if you will need investors to inject capital into your business, you have to show them something – your ideas + efforts.
#4. Create Good Information and Communication Flow
As part of what you’re starting with, is how you can bridge the communication gap between your business and your target audience (investors included). That’s why you need to invest in creating that information and communication flow.
This is not a big deal at all, you just need to create an online presence for your business by getting a website, getting on social media, and investing in Email marketing or CRM tools.
If you can’t build the website yourself, you can hire freelancers to get the job done for you, there are free email marketing tools like MailChimp that you can get started with. You can hire an expert to manage your business’s social media handles for you too. The person will be in charge of content creation, posting, and attending to comments.
Having a website is very important, if it’s just a landing page, do it and let people know about your business from there and use your social media handles to keep telling people about your mission, not that loudly tho.
#5. Start Expanding the Business
You’ve tried a lot, but it’s not the time to relax. It’s time to start thinking of expansion. I mean expansion at all lengths.
If you launch your business to focus on people in Canada and they accept it with open hands, it’s time to expand to New York, and then to Paris, to Africa, etc.
In your team as well, you need to have some people who will be in charge of marketing, human resources, engineering, international relation, legal, and many departments within your company.
With great power comes greater responsibility, the more you’re growing, the more you should expand.
But what if your company can’t afford to hire people you need to run the business as you’re thinking of expanding, is that the end? No, it’s not!
#6. It’s time to Seek Business Funding
This is not a must if your business can afford to finance itself, but I bet it can. As a startup that’s at the entry or expansion stage, you need money to take care of a lot of things and some people are ready to provide that money!
There are people called Angel investors and some are called Venture capitalists, these people are in the business of investing in other businesses to make a profit. No money is too big to invest for VCs as long as your company’s evaluation is also big.
If you think your business need funding, kindly check this blog post on how to get one for your business.
#7. Don’t Stop Expanding; Invest More in Your Business
You’re not there yet. Start investing more in advertising, your team members, think of innovation and, acquire other related small businesses.
Just don’t stop growing!
I hope these tips will help you start that business in 2022 and I believe you can conquer the world, don’t worry, start today!
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