12 Months to Startup

Wanting to get your own business off the ground? This article shows you the steps:

12 Months to Startup

The steps are:

1. Understand yourself
   
2. Research and Evaluate Your Idea
   
3. Choose a Business, a Location and its Structure, and Name It
   
4. Calculate the Costs
   
5. Write Your Business Plan
   
6. Identify Sources of Startup Financing
   
7. Work Through the Startup Paperwork Maze
   
8. Develop Your Marketing and Customer Service Plan
   
9. Court Your First Customers
   
10. Create Your Support Team
    
11. Execute Your Marketing Plan
    
12. Hang Out Your Shingle

Several of these steps can be simplified or eliminated if the company you are building is a small Web company. For example, you generally do need financing if you are opening a retail store, but you do not need financing to build a simple retail site on the web.

However, if you come to a point where want your small company to turn into a bigger one, you will probably find yourself going through most of these steps in one way or another. Therefore, it is good to know about the steps ahead of time.