There’s no better time to start building your business than now, right? To help set you on the right path, Hubbed Singapore has laid out 8 simple steps on how to build your framework and start your first business, both offline or online (or both!)

1. Identify Opportunities

Now this is the most important step, finding a business idea. Not ideas, but just one idea that you can develop later into several sub-ideas. Once you find an idea, try to find what opportunities you can tap into. 

For example, if you yourself are into skincare products, then maybe it’s a good idea to start from there. Identify businesses involving skincare that you can improve and develop, find what differentiates you from other skincare business owners. More product variations? Offer same-day delivery? Good customer service, or maybe free dermatologist consultation? Find your niches and write them down.

Remember, it’s always best to start a business that you can market just by being you. 

2. Validate Business Ideas

Once you've figured out the opportunities your business would like to tap into, you can start making business plans. Start by deciding what name to use for your business. The, continue with business plans and a simple competitive & SWOT analysis. These analyses can also help brainstorm your business ideas further, making sure you’re on the right track.

3. Go through Logistic & Finance

One part of a business plan is knowing where to get the money to start your business. Will you be looking for investors, or are you going to into bootstrapping mode? Either way is fine, as long as it suits your business model and calculated properly. 

Remember, it’s important to get a clear view of how much you need to spend in total, to start a business before you actually spend any funds. Bookkeeping and cashflows need to be monitored closely.

And if we’re talking about logistic, you also need to iron out the details on how you will get the products or services to sell. For example, if you want to sell skincare products, then first you need to find your suppliers. You need to list them, ask their price quotes, know their lead & delivery time to prevent out of stock on your store, etc. 

But what if you want to produce your own products?

4. Understand Regulations & Licenses Required

If we’re talking about skincare products, and you prefer to create your own brand and products, you need to know what cosmetic/health standards you should comply with. Check with fellow sellers, or ask these questions in seller communities, or you can even go to your local business & health regulatory agencies, and check with them what kind licenses & permits you need to have for your business.

If you just want to resell any products you purchased from vendors or suppliers, it’s much easier. But still, you need to make sure that those products are already compliant with the regulations in your area.

5. Get Your Hardware & Software

It depends on what business you’re trying to build, offline or online. If offline, then you need to prepare the required hardware & software, in your store & in your warehouse. If only online, you need to only prepare a good internet connection and a computer to run your online store smoothly.

Despite all that, a good accounting, e-mail marketing, and inventory management programs are always come in handy for a business to grow. 

6. What About Location?

If you relied on offline business more than your online one, then it’s important to have a strategic location for your business. A good location for retail business is determined by how easy-to-find and accessible it is by the walking visitors. Will it be in a shopping mall? Or a small shop or kiosk is sufficed?

You need to think about storage as well. Do you need to have a warehouse for your products, or all items can be stored in the shop? What if you want to have a delivery service for your products? Do you need to pack your orders from the warehouse, or from the shop?

Smaller online business with small quantity items usually can be completed from a home, as a start. No need to invest on a store or a warehouse yet.

7. Source your employees

Needed or not, it’s also better to plan the possibility of having employees to help you with the workload. Some of the workloads that you may need additional help to take care of includes; graphic design, photography, sales & marketing, admins, and for shipping/warehouse.

You can try to do most of them yourself, but it’ll likely taken up much of your time once the workload is increasing. Hiring and organizing employees to help are inevitable in a growing business.

8. Launch your business

Now you’re ready to launch your business. Once it’s running, generating revenues, and workloads are distributed evenly to your team, then you can start planning on how to develop your business. You can try to expand your network, tap into social media and paid ads, and do more research on your market & customer since you now have collected their purchase information.

Yes, starting a business isn’t easy, but it doesn’t have to be that difficult either. Just believe in the path you’re in, and start small; stop overthinking things, stop trying to do everything all at once. It takes time. As long as you’re consistent and doing the numbers right, you’re surely going to make an impact on your life with your business.

Good luck!