You have the perfect product or service in mind. You have an idea of what your website will look like, who your ideal customers are, and where you’d like to see your business go. Congratulations, you’ve officially begun your startup!
Unfortunately, what many startup founders miss is that it takes more than just great ideas and flexible working hours to create a business. Most importantly, there are plans: ones that can help ensure the success of a company long before any roadblocks start to form.
To guarantee long-term growth, consider the following three plans as you’re putting together your company.
1. Market Planning
You’ve become familiar with your target market, or you at least have an idea on the type of people who would benefit from your product or service.
That’s a solid start, but you need to plan your business around your knowledge of your market’s projected growth. Your market plan should include:
- Target customer personas. Customer personas allow you to create an actual visual image of your potential customers. This allows for more personalized marketing strategies and helps you put a face to the individuals that you’re trying to reach.
- Detailed demographics. Along with creating a customer persona, understanding the demographics of the individuals you’re targeting is crucial. Taking into consideration things like geographic locations, buying habits, and online preferences will prove that your market plan is comprehensive and effective.
- To develop personas and demographic fact sheets, you’ll need adequate research. Take the time to create focus groups, to ask questions, and to study how businesses similar to yours went to the next level.
- Professional market research and analysis can be expensive; however, you can start on your own. Research past data that’s available for free online to look at how your market has changed over time. Then, put together predictions for the future and address how your startup will adjust to those predictions. One helpful resource for understanding expected market growth is the Occupational Outlook Handbook by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
- Comprehensive marketing plan. From your research, think about how you’ll reach your market, what marketing strategies you’ll utilize, and which networks will be best for reaching your target.
Understanding your market and its outlook ensures that you are able to develop a strategic plan that will grow and adapt as your customers and potential customers do the same.
2. Disaster Planning
Business doesn’t always go as planned. To make your startup as resilient as possible, start by addressing potential challenges and disasters up front so you’ll be better prepared to face them.
Disasters to consider in your plan include:
- The loss of a major client. Would your startup survive if your largest client backed out?
- Physical damage. It’s hurricane season: what would happen if your office flooded tomorrow?
- Theft of equipment or ideas. Have your employees signed the necessary documents to certify the security of your ideas?
- Legal issues. Has the entire process of developing your startup been legitimately and ethically carried out?
- Unexpected competition. Would you be able to compete if a similar startup opened up in your area?
- Internal conflicts. These could reflect negatively on your business. Is that hot-headed employee a constant concern for you?
How would you handle these and other situations that could have disastrous consequences for your just-starting business? In many cases, simply being aware of potential disasters before they happen could make all the difference.
For example, signing up for the proper kinds of insurance can drastically minimize the impact of damage caused by natural disasters—just ask the businesses that survived Hurricane Sandy and Katrina. Likewise, having your employees sign legally binding documents that protect your intellectual property will minimize (or at least give you cause to dispute) theft of your startup’s ideas and plans.
Make sure your disaster plans outline not only steps that you’ll take to remediate negative circumstances, but also the players you’ll have on hand to provide assistance. Being prepared is your best defense.
3. Scalable Planning
You know where you are at the start of your business, but how will your startup scale going forward? Where will you be in five to 10 years? What about beyond that time frame? Now is the time to plan scalable business strategies.
Your scaling plan should include:
- Key players. What positions do you need to get started? Which will you need as you grow? It will also be helpful if you actively seek out employees who want to live and work in your area for an extended amount of time, or who are very passionate about your industry.
- Capacity evaluation. What’s your current business capacity? At what point—revenue, number of customers, or other marker—will you need to bring on additional team members? It’s important to keep track of where you are in terms of your business capacity so you don’t overwork the employees you have.
- Partnerships. What businesses would be good partners moving forward? How can other providers support your growth plan? Try to establish friendly and mutually beneficial connections with other businesses early on in you startup’s creation, as these will help you gain wider brand exposure and continue your growth.
- Location. Can your current location handle a growing business, or will you need to expand in the future? If it’s possible to do a majority of your work online, it may also help if you rely on remote teams during your business’ early years.
Once you’ve formed these three plans, you’ll be on your way to creating a resilient and well-prepared business. But make sure to evaluate your plans from time to time and make adjustments as necessary; adaptability is key for any plan (business or otherwise) to be a success.