5 Questions You Need To Have Clear Answers For Before Starting A Business

Harry Trott

October 30, 2014

	Not rated
	Rate:

Unless you are born in a family of entrepreneurs, starting a business of your own can be a tough choice. It is not easy to quit a stable, regular income job to venture into uncharted territories. This is all the more complicated when you are not clear with the whats and hows of your business strategy. So before you put your money into your new business, ensure that you have clear answers to the following ten questions.

1. Does your business have a market?

Are you launching something that nobody has ever done? A lot of entrepreneurs think their startup should do something unique. This is risky because one reason why such a product doesn't exist may also be because it doesn't have a market. So before you launch your business, validate the market and be convinced of finding customers.

2. Do you need a co-founder?

Not all businesses require a co-founder. In an article on The Next Web, Jay Barnett of the popular Australian chauffeur rental service Priority Pickup points out that the common belief that you need co-founders to complement your skills is flawed because such skills may always be procured for cheap through contracting.

3. Do you need a VC-funding?

If one of your core strategies to preparing yourself for the startup journey has been to follow news on websites like Forbes and Entrepreneur, you might tend to think VC funding is paramount to startup success. But as a matter of fact, you should not go for VC funding until it is absolutely necessary. That's because with VC funding, you are essentially buying yourself a job. There are plenty of alternatives including loans, bank savings and 401K. Are you clear the right path forward with respective to funding your business?

4. Do you have a monetization strategy in place?

Not all of us can afford to launch a business like Twitter or Facebook and expect to run solely on account of the VC funding. The sole objective of a business is to make money and if you do not have a monetization strategy in place before launching the business, you should think twice about jumping in.

5. Do you have a marketing strategy in place?

So you have already validated your business and are sure that your business has a market. How are you going to reach out to the target market? Would you need to advertise? Do you hope to run on free traffic acquisition strategies? Do you have a plan in place to get your first 100 or 1000 customers? If no, then you should start working on it before you invest in building the product. This will give you more clarity on how much money you will need to allocate for advertising, hiring, etc.

Starting up requires a lot of pivoting and an appetite to take in failure. But with a clear answer to the above questions, you can ensure that you fail fast and learn your mistakes quicker. After all, a successful entrepreneur is one who can sustain even in the onslaught of failure. Having a clear answer to your doubts is a great first step.