While many people would say that setting up a business during a pandemic is not a good idea, fortune favors the brave and if you have done your market research and are confident you’ve got what it takes, there’s every reason to expect success. Of course, your business plan is everything and should be your guideline that covers every aspect of the business and in order to ensure that nothing gets overlooked, here is our ultimate checklist for a tech startup.
- Organization Flowchart – It is important to know what everyone is doing within the organization; if you are outsourcing everything, create a plan that shows these relationships. Each person should know their role, which should be clearly defined and the workforce should be good team players. It is important to have contact with developers who freelance on tech projects, which makes it easy to put together a team in a hurry. For most clients, time is everything and the sooner the product can ruin online tests, the better; the ability to create a tech product in good time is valuable in this ever-changing market.
- Funding – Sit down and crunch the numbers to find out the total cost of setting up the business and that figure is your start-up capital; you also need to calculate your running costs and make sure you have adequate funds to survive the first 6 months without making a single sale.
- Business Registration – You are advised to seek legal advice regarding the type of business you set up, as some are more advantageous than others. You could create a sole trading entity, or a partnership, or even a limited company. There are certain tax advantages to consider, which is why you need legal advice when registering a business.
- Insurance – As the business owner, it is your job to minimise the risks to the business and that means taking out public liability insurance and insuring all stock and vehicles.
- Business Plan – Let’s face it, your business plan is your Bible and the more work you put into this manuscript, the better prepared you will be. Indeed, many business gurus would tell you not to actually do anything until the business plan is complete! The plan should be such that after reading it, a potential investor would fully understand and have no questions; there are free resources online to help you create a comprehensive business plan, which should be 30-50 pages long.
- IT Services – Talk to an Orlando based company about IT consulting and they can carry out a digital audit to see what they can do to streamline your business processes. Forget cell phones; Voice over Internet Protocol is the way to go for all your business communication; Zoom is a great VoIP platform with many powerful features to enable video conferencing, all at a fraction of the cost of regular telephone calls. Store all your business data on the cloud, which is secure and can be accessed from any location.
- Networking – Whether you are a mobile app design company or you customize business software, you should be networking in all the right places, with very specific marketing strategies. Top recruitment agencies are great for sourcing tech professionals, with many working on a contract basis, which is ideal. Identify your client groups and work out how best to reach them with rich content; a digital marketing agency would help you with branding and SEO, driving the business forward. Click here for a list of top mobile apps that are killing the entertainment industry.
We are assuming that you’ve carried out extensive market research and your skills are in demand and with access to top front and back-end developers and code writers, your tech start-up will enjoy steady growth. Click here for US government information on setting up your own business, which every entrepreneur should read.
