Online Businesses are currently trending considering the shift in paradigm especially after the imposition of lockdown worldwide. Even if we do not consider the gaining popularity of online businesses, they have numerous benefits. A person who starts an online business can easily operate and work from home saving you the money to invest in getting a workspace or an office.
Even though on the surface it seems that an online business is very easy to set up there are still a lot of intricate and complicated steps which need to be followed in order to make sure that your online business initiative proves to be successful and profitable. This is the five-step detailed process we recommend in order to effectively set up your business.
1. Deciding On Your Business Idea
This would be the obvious first step considering the fact that you wouldn’t have a business set up without deciding upon the business idea. There are a few things you need to consider before starting to establish your business.
Firstly you need to ask yourself why are you planning to start this business. Self Introspection is the best way in finding out the way forward and finding out the mission or the aim with which you want the business to progress. You need to ask yourself about the entry and exit strategy for your startup.
Secondly, you need to consider your strengths. Is it in your strength to open this particular business or if you have no idea how things work in that particular sector you’re planning to start the business. Thirdly and lastly before we move on to the development stage of the business you need to consider if your business will be able to survive solely on the Online Platform.
2. Validating The Business Idea
Once you have sorted everything out pertaining to your Business Idea, it is now time to validate the idea. There are several ways in which you can validate and find out if your Business idea is legitimate and will it work or not. You can contact potential customers and have a chat and obtain information about their needs and requirements and if you would be fulfilling them.
First, it is recommended that you go through customer reviews of your competition and figure out the needs of the people, and then set up and validate your business plan accordingly. The second thing you can do is set up a landing page.
Now, this is done simply to understand the level of interest people show in your business and also how much of a potential customer base you can expect for your business. After gathering the necessary information you can validate and yet again optimize your plan to perfection.
If you cannot personally call or get in touch with every potential customer, what you can do is conduct research via the means of surveys and forms in order to study potential customers.
3. Starting Your Business Plan
This is the most important part of starting your Online Business. Under this plan, there are a lot of things involved. Once you’re done with formulating and validating a Business Plan it is now time to practically implement it.
First, you need to start out with something known as lean planning. A lean plan is something you can plan for in thirty minutes instead of sitting and planning for more than six weeks. A lean plan lets you plan for all the immediate things instead of immediately planning for things in the long term which may or may not happen.
Post lean planning it is imperative that you conduct a market analysis and determine the need for your product. You can conduct a SWOT Analysis, also known as the Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat Analysis which lets you introspect better. Lastly, you also need to consider the amount of funding required and also the chances of success in the business since both of these are the best indicators of your business succeeding or failing.
4. Setting Up Your Website
Once you have taken the step of implementing your business plan practically, it is now the best time to set up a Website in order to start the online business in a full-fledged way. There are a lot of elements that need to be taken care of which include setting up a preview landing page, enable online payments for your business, deciding the host for the website, the platform, the whole designing process of the Website, and so on.
Your website needs to be perfect considering the fact that it is the representation of your Business and any mistakes regarding that should not be accepted. You need to consider if you want to set up your own E-Commerce Platform or host the products or services you’re providing to a third-party provider.
Both have their own pros and cons. If you decide to open your own E-Commerce you shall have more freedom to design the whole website process and also save royalty money charged by the third-party platform. However, if you host your products on a third-party platform you will get more exposure and a bigger customer base.
And the final process of setting up a website would be deciding the name of your company for both legal and representative purposes. Setting up a catchy name is necessary considering that you need to attract customers in that particular way.
5. Registering Your Online Business
The final step in starting your own online business is to register and make it legal. If you plan on making a profit and paying taxes it is imperative that you register your business with the relevant trade authorities of your country.
Registering your business would let it get a status separate from you which would do nothing but assist you better in the management, administrative and accounting purposes. You need to read up on the business regulations and rules of your respective country depending on the type of business you’re planning to run.
