A lot of people think starting a business is hard. Too many would-be-entrepreneurs get stuck early in the process because they think only a certain type of person has what it takes to make it as a successful business owner. The reality is, most people have what it takes: a good idea, the right amount of capita and the creativity.

What most people lack, however, is the patience, determination and ability to plan. It’s easy to become overwhelmed in the early stages of starting a business. The key is to have a working plan to stick to. Use something simple to guide you along the way.

Here are seven key first steps to starting your own business:

An idea is great, but you need to be able to give it legs. Your job as a new entrepreneur and future business owner is to think about every aspect of your business. Come up with answers to every question a stranger or potential investor might ask you. For example try to answer these questions:

Who is the target market for the product?

What could go wrong and how will you solve it?

Are there additional products or services that could tie into your main offering?

What are the main things you want your customers to know about you?

By preparing answers to these questions ahead of time, you'll come across as a more confident and trustworthy business owner when it comes time to try to attract the attention of the right stakeholders.

After you’ve taken the time to answer questions about your business or product idea, put together a concrete business plan.

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, the main parts of a business plan include the executive summary, a company description (what makes the company unique), a market analysis (the competition and target demographics), the company's structure, a description of the service or product line, the marketing and sales strategy, financial projections -- plus any additional useful information.

Entrepreneur also has a section of free business plan templates that can help you get started.

If you're planning to start a one-person business, you don’t necessarily need to worry about hiring anyone. But it might be helpful to create a plan for the future when you want to scale the business.

No matter what the size of your business is, you'll need a few essentials to start operating. Create a list of everything you’ll need and its approximate cost, Whether it’s an office space with a new desktop and printer or a warehouse to hold the products.

If you are purchasing something that will solely be used for business, then likely it's tax deductible. Be sure to check with the IRS, an accountant or a tax attorney to be sure you are properly deducting expenses.

Related: 10 Essential Startup Lessons That You May Not Have Learned in College

Before you launch the business off the ground, start planning the ideas for marketing, sales, and branding efforts. Because social media is used by much of the U.S. population in most age groups and continues to grow in popularity globally, having an online presence is key.

Create a Facebook page, Twitter profile, Google+, and LinkedIn page for your business, depending on the appropriate social media channel for your company. For instance, a dry cleaner may not find a LinkedIn page useful but could connect well with a local community on Google+ and Facebook. Be sure all your web pages have a cohesive feel and are updated regularly.

All other communications with your clients should have a cohesive feel. Use the company's brand colors and logo to create business cards, letterhead and email signatures to demonstrate to customers a professional operation.

Not setting up proper accounting, bookkeeping and tax records up front can be dangerous and costly to a business in the long run. Set up the business as an limited liability company, an S Corp or whatever structure fits best to protect personal assets. Use bookkeeping software like GoDaddy Bookkeeping  or Quickbooks that make it easy to export records when doing taxes.

Hire an accountant for your business who can ensure that taxes are done correctly. While doing your own business taxes can be relatively easy when running a solo business, laws and regulations vary by state. Consult with an expert to make sure you're in the clear.

When you finally have your business up and running, keep track of regular tasks that keep a business running, namely doing payroll, keeping up with inventory, updating the website and regularly blogging and using social media. Create a list of these regular tasks and schedule them on a project management dashboard or an online to-do list like ToDoist, which lets someone list a task’s due date as “every fourth Wednesday” and then it regularly appears on a daily task list.

This ensures you will continue the regular housekeeping tasks of the business so it runs smoothly.

Whether your business is a day or a year old, continuously set goals in order tomove your business forward.

Examine the competiton, employees, investors and peers to help you decide what new goals need to be set and what needs to happen so as to be successful. 

 source:www.entrepreneur.com/article/237161

As long as consumers have problems, they will always search for solutions. People will always look for better, faster and smarter ways to accomplish everyday tasks. And fortunately for entrepreneurs, there are still lots of rooms for improvements in existing products. That said, the biggest issue for most founders is finding these painful problems and matching them with the best solutions possible.

Here are a couple pieces of insight to get you started.

Focus on building a must have not a nice to have product. Consumers are overwhelmed with the paradox of choice on daily basis. Attention spans are getting shorter in the age of multi-tasking and only few products are getting noticed – with many being a solution for a must not a want. The demand for quicker and faster results make it difficult to fully satisfy the needs of consumers. You need to be doing something different and better to make it in this world, as donsumers expect and demand more than just another product.

Solve real painful problems. Google made search better. Amazon simplified online buying and selling. Netflix solved on-demand streaming media. Uber is trying to make on-demand car service better. What can you make smarter or better?

What is the one painful problem you can solve without struggle? To grab your customer's attention, start by solving their needs, wants rarely make the cut. If your product is not a must-have, you could still find a way to repurpose it to solve a pressing need. If you have been able to identify a crucial problem that you can effectively execute and deliver to market, you will be able to create a real business that matters.

Your business should be your passion. Some entrepreneurs look to solve problems they identify with or feel passionate. They choose this path because work because less about work and more about enjoying the journey.

You will need all the inspiration, commitment and the perseverance you can get to make it as an entrepreneur, hence the need to start a business you are passionate about.

"The happiest and most successful people I know don’t just love what they do, they’re obsessed with solving an important problem, something that matters to them," Dropbox co-founder Drew Houston said during the 2013 MIT commencement address.  

Coupled with passion, is the ability to execute. If you can't deliver, you are not in business. Products with a real need are easy to market and you won't have to convince people about the existence of the problem and the need for your product because they identify with it.

You don't want to start a business that may not survive. Do your homework, validate your idea and make sure you have a real market for your idea. Don't just start another business, solve a real problem people actually have to increase your chances of success.

 

Leading is all about influence. How you present yourself in a leadership role affects your ability to successfully leverage authority and motivate others. Do you inspire people to follow your lead? If not, consider evaluating your performance and addressing crucial gaps.

Tweaking a few key behaviors can make a huge difference in how others perceive you. Many people don’t take this point seriously enough and damage relationships, reputations and careers in the process. Be proactive. Here's the deal: Leading can be a rewarding, yet challenging undertaking. Follow these six tips to model excellence and gracefully inspire others to follow your lead:

Set high expectations at the outset and raise the bar on any crucial factors. The best way to establish a standard is by modeling the expected behavior yourself. Showcase excellence. When your actions have the potential to affect everyone around you and the bottom line, don't dabble in mediocrity. Reflecting excellence is critical to exercising effective leadership. This is ground zero for establishing influence.

Able leadership requires an ability to deliver results. Rhetoric has little value  if outcomes are what's essential. Instead of touting wins from past performances, focus on capturing tangible gains now.  

Harness the power of chunking, a process for organizing tasks and breaking them down into bite-size pieces to avoid stress and burnout. Remember to follow up and follow through, too.

Engage experts if necessary to timely and competently pull projects forward. In the end, only substance and the final sum will matter. Excuses won’t.

Top-notch people skills are vital to sound leadership. Develop premium listening, communication and decision-making skill sets. Demonstrate integrity by being open, honest and fair.

Your transparency will reap clear rewards. If you treat people well, most will be encouraged to return the favor. By elevating the importance of people and relationships, you enhance your ability to relate to others in an authentic and meaningful way.

Related: Bosses Who Pick on One Employee Ruin Everyone's Productivity, Study Shows

Collaboration is an indispensable component of leadership as captured in John Donne's line “No man is an island." This is especially true if you can build high-performing teams, according to the Harvard Business Review's site. Isn’t it fascinating that no matter how brilliant people are as individuals, they are often far more effective when working with others?

People often produce higher quality, more efficient work products when collaborating. Commit to this by actively embracing opportunities for healthy cooperation. Make teamwork an attractive aspect of workplace culture. Less burnout, increased trust among peers and enhanced interpersonal relationships will result. 

Approach conflict proactively, which means the sooner you resolve things, the better. As a core leadership competency, conflict resolution is a delicate process that requires thoughtful intervention. Disagreements naturally occur. But persistent hostility should not be tolerated. The bottom line? Conflict gets in the way of everything else. Thus your ability to quickly and effectively facilitate resolution will undoubtedly boost your ability to lead.

Professional development is an extraordinary mechanism for facilitating growth. Demonstrate your commitment to expanding your reach and your team's by prioritizing opportunities for enrichment. Allot time and resources to make the process stress free. Challenge yourself and your team to overcome shortcomings at regular intervals throughout the year. Then acknowledge and reward proactive participation to build enthusiasm and encourage continued progress. 

source:http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/237440

Entrepreneurs will often have amazing business ideas, but they put them on hold due to a lack of capital. They assume that their idea will never get far off the ground unless they have major funding behind them. 

It seems that every day there is a new startup receiving millions of dollars from venture capital firms, but what you don’t hear about is theseveral startup failures that burn through millions of dollars only to fizzle out and shut their doors forever.

f your idea and plan of execution aren’t well thought out from the beginning, no amount of money can turn it into a winner. Have a great idea but very little money? Don’t let that stop you! Yes, there will be ridiculously long days with little to no sleep. Yes, you are going to be stressed. But those that want it bad enough will make it.

Here are eight tips that can help you get your idea off the ground with limited funds.

1. Build your business around what you know. Instead of venturing off into uncharted territory, make sure that you build your business around your skills and knowledge. The less you have to rely on outside sources the better. When your business is built around your own personal expertise you can eliminate consultants and outside assistance. 

Also, having that knowledge is sometimes all that is needed to successfully take the plunge into entrepreneurship.

2. Tell everyone you know what you are doing. Inform your family, friends, business contacts and past colleagues about your new business. Call, send emails and make your new venture known on your social-media profiles. Your friends and family members can help you spread the word, and past business contacts can introduce your brand to their professional contacts as well. This type of grassroots marketing can help introduce your company to a much larger audience.

3. Avoid unnecessary expenses. You are going to have plenty of expenses, and there are some that just can’t be avoided. What you can avoid though is overspending. Take something as simple as business cards. You could drop $1,000 on 500 metal business cards that give off the “cool” factor, or you could spend $10 on 500 traditional business cards. Being frugal in the beginning can be the difference between success and a failed business.

4. Don’t get buried in credit card debt. There is a smart way and a suicidal way to use credit when starting a business. New computers, office furniture, phones and supplies can all quickly add up. Instead of purchasing everything at once and throwing it all on a credit card, use your company’s revenue to finance your expenses. Eliminating the stress and burden of debt will greatly increase the chances of creating a successful business. 

Related: Funding Your Business on Your Own? Learn From These 7 Entrepreneurs

5. Make sure your receivables policy won’t sink you. If your business is a retail operation then this isn’t going to apply, but if you are providing services such as consulting or products to retailers you need to make sure that your payment policy is well thought out. Can you remain above water with net-15 or net-30 terms? Don’t base your receivables on what you think your customers will want. Base them on what is going to make your business operate successfully.

6. Build up sweat equity. When I first started my business I worked around the clock, handling every aspect of the business as well as the marketing and growth. All of the hard work and long days that you put in isn’t for nothing. You are building a brand and your hard work is essentially increasing the value of your business. Your sweat equity will come into play if you ever decide to sell off a piece of your company or take on a partner.

7. Take advantage of free advertising and marketing. There are several ways to generate a buzz for your business without breaking the bank. Social media is a great way to gain exposure and interact with potential customers. You can also reach out to local media and offer your expertise.

Make as many local media contacts as you can and be extremely responsive with their requests. This can lead to them to branding you as the local authority, generating plenty of free press for your business. 

8. Get ready to hustle. Hard work is an absolute necessity, but when you are starting a business with little to no capital then you must be prepared to dedicate everything you have into making the business a success. This might mean cold calling, handling customer support, dealing with billing and accounting, and every other working part of your business. You will wear many hats and it will require the majority of your time and energy if you are to make it.

Don’t let limited capital prevent you from taking a great idea and running with it. Will it be difficult and will you have some stressful situations? Of course, but that is part of entrepreneurship.

Have you started a business with sweat equity alone? If so, let us know about your experiences in the comments section below.