These days, it’s easier than ever to start a small business—which is why around 400,000 new businesses are created each year!
Thanks to the advance of the internet, there are very few barriers to starting a company of your own, especially since there’s no need to rent a brick-and-mortar office of your own. In fact, some of the best online businesses to start to require minimal up-front investments.
Of course, even with the right idea for a new company, it can be hard to know how to legally start an online business. If you’re ready to launch your venture, here are the steps and resources to keep in mind.
Find a Problem to Solve and a Market to Serve
Before you get too far into the process of starting your business, make sure you’re solving a problem that people actually need help with.
This will mean researching your target audience, as well as understanding their needs and concerns. You’ll also want to choose a niche at this stage, ensuring that you’re carving out a place for yourself in the market. Essentially, this is the time for brainstorming potential ideas and solutions, or for further developing an idea you already have in mind.
Validate Your Idea With Market Research
Once you have an idea solidified in your head, it’s time for researching and testing your business idea to make sure it’s valid.
To do this at a low cost, many entrepreneurs launch a bare-bones website or even a simple landing page, allowing them to check for interest and see if their idea takes off. Even if you’re selling a physical product that you haven’t finalized yet, you can still test the waters by working to get subscribers and preorders on the front end.
Cover Your Legal Bases
Once you’re sure your idea is feasible, it’s time to outline your next steps with a business plan. You’ll find plenty of resources online to help with this, like this easy walkthrough from the U.S. Small Business Administration. The important part is to make sure you’ve put serious thought into your business’s structure and management.
With this document in hand, you’ll be better equipped to cover your other legal bases. Depending on your business, you’ll need to tackle some or all of the following steps:
- Register your business with your state government
- Get any necessary licenses and permits
- Apply for state and federal ID tax numbers
- Take care of any copyrights, patents, and trademarks you’ll need
The details of these steps vary from state to state, so be sure to check with your local authorities to learn more about the requirements where you live.
Launch Your New Business
Once the legal paperwork is out of the way, it’s time to take the next few steps toward launching! Depending on your business model, you may find that you need to secure startup funding before this step. If you haven’t built a website in the market research and testing phase, you’ll also need to tackle this before you launch.
As you might expect, the work won’t finish after the launch! You’ll need to regularly optimize your business and tweak the details as you grow. Creating a profitable business is an ongoing process, so you can expect to improve your strategies along the way.
Looking for help finding more of the strategies that work? Be sure to take a look at our other posts for more insights!
