This page provides the main things you may need to consider when starting a business. Every business is not the same. So, these guidelines here are not exhaustive.
If you are thinking of starting a new business, you need to consider a number of factors to ensure the best chance of success. As well as your product or service, you will need to think about what you will call your business. What sort of structure will it have, and how will you run it? It would help if you also think about how you will attract customers and where the money will come from for setting up while the business finds its feet. However, as a founder, you only start out first with an idea. If you do not have an idea, you do not have a starting point, as nothing can be done without an idea first.
The general understanding of a start-up is that it is just any new business that someone starts. But this is not so. Defining a startup is not that easy nowadays as it goes beyond just launching a business. The Business Dictionary defines a start-up as the “Early stage in the life cycle of an enterprise where the entrepreneur moves from the idea stage to securing financing, laying down the basic structure of the business, and initiating operations or trading”. The US Small Business Administration associates a startup “with a business that is typically technology-oriented and has high growth potential” In India, the government has made it easier by defining a startup “as any entity that satisfies the following conditions:
- Is not more than 5 years since the incorporation
- Its turnover does not exceed 25 Crores in the last 5 financial years, which is about $5,000,000, depending on the prevailing exchange rate.
- It is working towards innovation, development, deployment, and commercialization of products, processes, or services that are driven by technology or intellectual property.
The Business Start-up Architecture
As already mentioned before, starting a business is a process. A process may be defined as a series of actions to achieve a defined outcome. In other words, from the time the idea is conceived to when it is launched, there are stages of development to go through. This process is iterative and may not necessarily follow a specific sequence, though certain things have to do first before others.
However, breaking it down into stages is convenient and enhances understanding. Fortunately, these stages have been studied by academics and practitioners, which have resulted in developing proven steps that, if taken in the right order, can help cover enough grounds to provide a solid foundation for success.
There are many frameworks which can be used in a start-up situation but the three listed below are our favourites.