Last minute jitters

IronWolf

I've been planning out launching my own business for a while, but its all coming to a point now where its actually going to happen! I've started to get a bit nervous thinking about all the reasons I shouldn't spend a small fortune on this idea, all the competition around and what if nobody wants my service!

I guess its normal to be a bit nervous when you're putting yourself out there and your hard earned money on the line?

xxJudexx

I'm sure everyone feels the same way. Luckily I was in a job I couldn't stand and I would have made myself unemployed before going back there so my worries were kind of non existent. I do still get times where I think to myself 'What am I doing?'.

Make sure you are passionate about what you get yourself involved in, being self emplyed you will find it very hard to switch off!

It will be worth it though! I have been self employed since January and even though I'm not yet at a wage I would like it is slowly building up and I can't really imagine myself doing anything else!

Gleeful

I am in the same boat! Some times I am too excited to even sleep, other times I am thinking 'What am I getting myself into?!'

IronWolf

Im lucky in that I will still have my full time job, and if I live on a tight budget I can afford to run the business from my disposable income without any revenue. But obviously I want it to be profitable eventually and wont have much money for marketing initially.

toastking

Have you carried out a full and proper business plan?

That might push you to doing it or giving up... So not sure if its the best move. Many people get to your stage and then plan themselves out of doing it.

I've advised quite a number of people now on startups and I think the only one that will really know if you think its worth it is you. But I'd advise trying to see if there is a real market for it by producing an MVP (minimum viable product) which could be used for testing. This would act as a road test but isn't relevant to all items.

Its worth considering since a lot of people try and perfect everything, rather than launching a brilliant idea and perfecting it once the customers show greater interest.

Without more of an idea what you are working on I cannot give anything beyond generic advice.

IronWolf

toastking wrote: »

Have you carried out a full and proper business plan?

That might push you to doing it or giving up... So not sure if its the best move. Many people get to your stage and then plan themselves out of doing it.

I've advised quite a number of people now on startups and I think the only one that will really know if you think its worth it is you. But I'd advise trying to see if there is a real market for it by producing an MVP (minimum viable product) which could be used for testing. This would act as a road test but isn't relevant to all items.

Its worth considering since a lot of people try and perfect everything, rather than launching a brilliant idea and perfecting it once the customers show greater interest.

Without more of an idea what you are working on I cannot give anything beyond generic advice.

Not done a formal thorough business plan no, it all just exists in my head. The business is very simple and involves just a single product. Its easy for me to evolve it over time as I get some customers and they give feedback. I run a website and people will pay for premium membership which gives them access to some data.

My USP is that I will give them a spreadsheet that populates with data at the click of a button. I will have some prepackaged analysis and models that I give but the real power of it is that people can completely customize it to do whatever analysis they want and it will update with just a click. It saves them time reading through documents and typing in figures themselves. The great thing for the business is that once someone has built their own spreadsheet and is using it, its impossible for them to switch to a competitor and get that exact spreadsheet populated. So the customers will hopefully be quite 'sticky'.

There are competitors that have this info but that are web browser based and so cant be customised. There are ways to get this kind of data free too but they are a lot more unreliable and more error prone. They also lack the level of detail I will have.

Currently I have a blog and write articles for other sites. This will be my main focus on marketing initially because its free and I have established followers there. I've also developed a refer a friend system thats very generous as I've seen this kind of thing before and it drives so much business as people are incentivised to direct others to your site so they can earn rewards.

Paid advertising is something I will test the waters with to see what kind of conversion rates I get with things like Google ads, Twitter and Facebook ads.

My costs are all fixed (bar marketing) which is ideal for me as it allows me to be really generous with free trials and incentives.

colino

I would agree that both a business plan and limited market testing are the sensible platforms for any prospective business. The former because you can prove to yourself, with only time being a cost, that it does actually hang together. Do a sensitivity analysis of it too. What if demand is 30% higher or 30% lower for example. Both bring problems.
Market testing is often a surprising crunch for new businesses. Those friends, family and fools who have been supporting you all the way, can be remarkably reticent when you actually ask them to cough up for the product/process or service!
While wishing you the very best, ICT services and products are really difficult sells. Bigger potential buyers want off the shelf packages as they have internal support. Smaller buyers. Well, you have to have built-in a good paying support plan for them.
Bear in mind too that when you sell flexibility and customisation, most buyers, like the vast majority of software packages ever sold, only ever scratch the surface and blame the vendor for them not maximising the payback on their outlay.