What is the first thing you should do when starting your own business?

Question

We have decided what to do and who we can work for. What next!?

Answer 1

establish a taxpayer id, a corporate identity, obtain a business license for the city you will be based in, contact a payroll service to arrange for your payroll, unless you plan on doing it in house, contact your state's worker's compensation board, if required in ur state (required in many states), obtain a general liability insurance policy, establish a company bank account, decide if u want to be a sole ownership company, or partnership, or corporation, and try to hire someone, even if only as a consultant, who has experience in the field of business you plan on owning.

Answer 2

A few things come to mind:

- Scope out the competition. What can you offer that's not already available? If you can't offer anything new, how are you going to do it differently than existing companies? WHY would a consumer choose YOUR business over the others? This may seem like an unimportant thing to think about when you're excited and you've convinced yourself that you will be successful...but it's the first step to seeing whether or not your business will actually be profitable and make it through the difficult first year.

- Business plan, vital. You can find plenty of business plan templates online...go to Google and search for them if you need help. Even better, draft one up with an accountant and lawyer.

- Taxes (tax ID, etc)

- DBA (Doing Business As), visit your local chamber of commerce.

- Decide the who's, whats and wheres. Who are you going to work with to get your supplies/products/business needs? Who is going to be responsible for what? Where are you going to run your business...out of the home? Do you need an office/real estate? What will you do if your business grows and needs more space?

Answer 3

Absolutely the first thing is to write a business plan. This will tell you if the business is viable. Once you've completed the plan, you might actually realize that the business won't work. So, keep revising the plan until it makes sense. Then, and only then, start spending money (registering the business, etc.)

Answer 4

Pick a name, get it registered & get some sort of advertising out there. Many years ago when my husband & I started our business we walked parking lots putting notices on car windows while waiting for our Yellow Page ad to come out.
I wish you well

Answer 5

I think the first thing you could do is to check whether your products, topics or ideas have any high market demand and how many competitor online you might be facing. This could be easily checked out using some of the online application tools.

Find out more from the link inside my profile page.

Hope that it will be helpful to you.

Answer 6

You have to figure it out...

Check for name,
Then get Fed tax id,
Then... Incorporate, Sole, or LLC...
Depends on the business contact ur city .. Register

The basics is the above.... Then it depends on the type of business of whats next...

Answer 7

write a business plan.
It will not only help you to further determine the feasibility of your proposed venture and to establish operating goals, but it will also be required by most lenders and investors.

Answer 8

Cashflow, cashflow and more cashflow.

It's the life blood on any business and more so when you first start out. If you don't get a tight grip on it, you'll find yourself dry and high pretty soon.

That and assembly a top notch team.

Dylan

Answer 9

Figure out taxes, insurance policies and method of payments to employee's