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Any entrepreneur who sets out to create a viable startup will need to make sure they know what they are doing. There are plenty of mistakes to be made, but that doesn’t mean they have to be something you come up against. The fact is, if you use the 5 good ideas in this guide, your startup will be built on a foundation that means it can truly last.
Prioritize The Most Important Things
Start out by prioritizing the most important things in your business. What are your values, and what is most important to you? Doing this will help you to define your business mission and give a product or service that stands out from the rest.
Make sure you’ve also considered the important things that are a necessary part of any business. Hiring a reputable accountant, getting insurance, and doing the things that aren’t so fun but will protect you in the long run.
Lease Your Equipment
Leasing your equipment gives you a chance to see how often you use the equipment you think you need before purchasing. Going for equipment leasing over buying will potentially help you to save money if you realize that you don’t actually need something you thought you did. It’s also a great option if you’re doing a one off job for a customer. You don’t need to purchase absolutely everything yourself, especially in the beginning.
Know Your Audience
Knowing your audience is one of the only ways you’re going to get off the ground at the start. What do they want? Who are they? What are their interests, likes and dislikes? Defining them as much as possible and going as far as doing market research will tell you many useful things.
Build Strong Customer Relationships
Once you know your audience and you’ve transformed a few of them into customers, you haven’t won. You haven’t even started! You need to make sure you build strong customer relationships, so that they will come back to you again and again. Not only that, so that they tell all of their friends about you! Word of mouth is one of the most effective marketing tools you can get, and you can’t buy it.
Work on building strong customer relationships by going above and beyond, and offering things that your competitors don’t. It’s a known fact in the business world that keeping your customers is worth more than trying to gain new customers all the time. Of course you want to get new customers, but make sure your focus is retention.
Wait To Hire
You might want to start hiring pretty quickly if you’re getting a stream of orders in and you’re feeling confident. However, it’s usually a good idea to wait a while before doing this. You can usually outsource a task rather than hire, and you aren’t making any big commitments or spending a huge amount of money.
Do these things and you can make sure your business makes it past the first few months-years!
