I was recently asked if I could write a “how to start your own business” article.

I think that is a great idea but want to give suitable content and space to help make readers’ journey impactful.

Over the next four months, I will be writing four articles with each one covering three steps in starting your own business.

I hope that the four articles, added together, will have a multiplier effect on starting your own venture.

The topics to be covered:

Steps 1 to 3: What, where and how (Ideas and opportunities)

Steps 4 to 6: The horse, the jockey and the track (Business model, business owner and market)

Steps 7 to 9: Start right, see right and sell right (Legal stuff, mission and sales)

Steps 10 to 12: Customers, cash and collaboration (People, money and Networking)

This series will be published in this paper as well as its sister papers at the end of every month, both in print (space permitting) and on each paper’s website.

Ideas, opportunities and taking action

The grandma test

Are you able to share your ideas easily with, for example, your grandmother? Your business might solve a complicated problem, but you should be able to explain it in simple terms so that anyone can understand it.

Kris Duggan, CEO of BetterWorks suggested using what he calls the grandma test.

“When you typically hear someone pitch their idea, it’s often full of buzzwords that rarely make sense. When you think about your new business idea, ask yourself, ‘Can it pass the grandma test?’”

The viability test

Does your idea offer real solutions to real world problems, and will people be willing to pay for it?

When you’re first considering a new business idea, skip the formal business plan and start with a one-page business model canvas.

At a minimum, you’ll want to cover the following:

● Why are you doing this? What’s your mission?

All new businesses need a sense of purpose. Are you trying to improve people’s lives in some way? What are the core differentiators of your business that set you apart from the next person trying to build a similar business?

● What problem are you solving? You need to be solving some sort of real problem that exists in the world.

If you aren’t solving a problem for potential customers, then how will you get people to buy your product or service?

● Who are you solving this problem for? As important as having a problem to solve, is having customers who have this problem.

Knowing who your ideal customer is and how you can find them is critical to starting a successful business.

● How are your potential customers solving their problem today? This is where you want to write down a few notes about your competition. What choices do your customers have today? How is your solution better?

The talk test

Have you tested your idea with both friend and stranger? Have you been willing to engage with those who think your idea soars and with those who think it sucks?

Shockingly, talking to potential customers about your new business idea is the step that most entrepreneurs overlook. Not talking to your potential customers raises your chances of failure substantially, so head out of the door and start talking to people as soon as you can.

As you bounce your business idea off friends and family, it’s easy to end up only hearing positive feedback.

Even potential customers might not want to hurt your feelings and will therefore not give you their completely honest opinion. This is where finding a few naysayers is important. Find people who don’t like your idea and get them to poke holes in it. Why do they think it’s going to fail?

Opportunities

Opportunity is a set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something. The truth is that an opportunity can solve your problems.

Here are four tips to finding your opportunity:

Actively look for opportunity

Before you can see an opportunity, you must be looking for an opportunity. This seems basic, but many people have given up on looking for opportunity, like in that saying, “You wouldn’t see an opportunity if it hit you in the face.”

Opportunity can literally be right where you are, but you’re blind to it.

Be willing to read and research.

They say knowledge is power, and it’s true. You won’t find opportunity without knowledge.

For everything you ever want, you are just a piece of knowledge away from obtaining it. It was said by Malcolm Gladwell in his best-selling book Outliers, that someone who reads and researches/ practises a subject for 10 000 hours, can become an expert in that subject.

You must go for it.

You have to leave the land of comfortability and set sail into new territory. Harbours are safe places for ships and boats to shelter in a storm, but ships and boats are not designed to stay at harbour. They are made to venture out and to fulfil their purpose. So it is with the budding entrepreneur.

Be a network ninja

Everything you want, somebody else has. Contacts equal contracts. How big is your power base? How big is your pipeline? The more people you know, the more opportunities will come your way.

There’s a reason that successful network marketers make a lot of money – they prospect.

Identify potential contacts. It may be that a networking event doesn’t have these earmarked people in attendance, but there might be someone else present at a networking session who can give you an introduction.

Remember, networking is your net-worth; your first focus is to connect, not to sell. Networking will pay huge dividends… when you work.

● Steve Reid runs his own business in support of entrepreneurs, leaders and incubators.

You can contact him at steve@entreprenacity.com