Starting the Process of Starting a Business
Sometimes golden opportunities arrive through sheer luck, though other times we must make our own luck. Most often, it’s a marriage of both. While working in Campus Recruitment at a large Fortune 100 company, I noted many clients’ unfilled desire for a firm that recruited, yes, but also placed employees. Here arrived luck: My division was being downsized, thus giving me professional freedom. But I intervened, negotiating a part-time consultant position for myself within that shrunken department, guaranteeing consistent income and networking. Serendipity struck twice: My closest colleague also wanted to move on. With part-time work sustaining us both, we had the freedom, funds, and complimentary timelines with which to begin our own company, Maximum Management, to fill the niche I’d identified.
Not every business requires a partner, but starting a business is much easier when allied with someone who can provide financial, intellectual, and emotional support.
Finding a partner, however, is as much a matter of circumstance as it is about personality match. A business partner must share your work and financial goals. Timelines should match, as should potential exit plans. It’s helpful if your skill sets compliment each others’, if only to increase flexibility in what kinds of contracts you can take on. With similar goals, timelines, and motivations, decision-making will be significantly simpler. More often than not, my business partner and I reached the same conclusions about important decisions, though occasionally for very different reasons.
Partner or not, however, there are some things you must keep in mind during your business’ development phase. I’ve mentioned this previously, but finding a legitimately unfilled niche in your target market is imperative, as is ensuring that your market isn’t already saturated with startups. If it is, your only option is to offer an unrivaled level of service. What makes your business unique, or rather, what can make it unique? Capitalize on that.
And learn everything about your competitors: their clients, their marketing strategies, their fee structures. Find creative ways to offer better service, even if that means initially undercutting the market for a loss. Know everything about the legal/financial sides of your business. You need to be the absolute authority on your business and on your type of business, capable of recognizing a problem before it arrives and already knowing how to solve it. You might even try finding a position in your target industry if you don’t already have experience in it. You could always have more. Read every applicable book you can find. Talk to every knowledgeable person.
And don’t be afraid of fiscal conservatism. Know your financial reserves intimately, and know what it costs to carry your business. Be confident, but not arrogant. Be bold, but not stupid. Maybe don’t stake everything on this business venture. Spend money to make money, but maybe not all of it. If possible, start out with clients already signed on, or seek consulting work that might help define your primary direction.
As you can see, this is all easier when done in a partnership. More people to problem solve and subsume responsibility. You certainly shouldn’t force yourself into an imperfect union --that strategy has sunk many-- but with a good idea, a complimentary partner, and an emphasis on market research, you’ll put yourself in the best position to succeed, like I did.