When you think of starting a business, you must consider renting a proper space and managing staff. But with more and more work-from-home setups people are discovering new ways of entrepreneurship by starting a business from home.
With more advancements and flexibility in technology, home-based businesses come in various forms. Some require you to convert your living room into a mini-warehouse while others just need a laptop and internet connection.
Decide On the Type of Business
This could be the hardest step. Consulting, e-commerce, daycare, tutoring – there are so many, how do you pick one!
Start with brainstorming ideas according to your experience and skills. Ideally, you should work on the idea that interests you and meets a need in the market. Once you have that winning business idea, jump and start the market research.
- Will you be able to expand to a wider market online?
- What is the demand for your idea in the industry?
- Who’s your competition?
- How much investment will you need?
It’s not necessary to reinvent the wheel. During your research, observe the areas with gaps in the marketplace and try to fill in those.
Write Down Your Business Plan
After finishing the questions above, you will have a solid idea to make the most of your profits. When starting a business from home, a business plan will help you gain clarity on the market and future finances. Now outline your business plan, break down every sub-point and delegate the suitable time and resources to each. Although there are many approaches to drafting a business plan, US Small Business Administration has outlined a simple template to follow:
- Executive summary
- Overview of your Company
- Market analysis
- Management
- Service and product line
- Marketing & Sales
- Funding
Setup Your Workspace
To start a business from home you’ll need a dedicated space away from the chaos to focus on work. At the business plan stage, set aside an area where you can manifest all your efforts. There are fewer chances to get distracted while working from a designated place. But you’ll have to choose the area carefully to get a certain degree of privacy, good internet speed, and also the background. Yes trust us on this, you will have some video calls to attend from time to time, be prepared for that.
Secure Your Business License and Insurance
Securing a license and insurance to start a business from home is one of the top concerns of new business owners. There are so many risk factors that you could encounter while running your own business – lawsuits, business interruptions, and data breaches. Solution – always start with the right insurance plan.
As a business owner, it’s your responsibility to invest in suitable insurance coverage. Some of the most common business insurance types that you can check:
- Commercial property coverage
- General liability
- Professional liability
- Business owner’s policy
- Cyber liability coverage
- Commercial auto insurance
With insurance coverage, don’t forget to apply for an Employer Identification Number (EIN). EIN is a federal tax identification number. This will help your business if you plan to hire employees or register your business as LLC.
Marketing Planning
When starting a new business from home, going into marketing without any planning could backfire. Marketing is a crucial part of business building. Lack of marketing planning could lead to reckless money spending with no real results. Even if you’re offering top-notch services. Google, Prada, Volvo are the best in what they do, but they never stop advertising. They market their products exclusively but with different plans and on different platforms. Outline your market plan to get the word out about your business:
- A complete overview of your long-term marketing goals.
- Description of your target market and audience.
- A time limit for the tasks.
- Important metrics to track along the way.
- Analysis of your competitors.
Separate Finances
It’s pretty obvious to suggest but now that you have all the planning ready and set, let’s discuss finances to start a business from home. Start with opening a separate business bank account to separate your expenses from business expenses. If numbers aren’t your area of expertise then you can hire an accountant, full-time or not according to your business growth.
Test Your Idea
Now it’s time to get out there and test your confounding business idea. To test the business from home idea the bottom line is you should focus on making sales. There’s no perfect plan to follow. Regardless of how carefully you implement the strategies, you may encounter some missteps and gaps.
To fill these gaps, implement your business idea you should always use the right set of tools. Picktime is a free web-based appointment scheduling software – that aims to bring you productivity and a respected place in the industry. From Beauty & Wellness to Medical to Business Advisory, Picktime deals in every industry. It’s rated the best as a trusted vendor, a leader and serving the happiest customers by G2, Crozdesk, and Capterra.
With Picktime you get a personalized business page to manage all your appointments and services in one place. You get 24×7 email support for any queries and questions. Using Picktime you can assign staff with particular services, maintain your customer database at multiple locations. It has a user-friendly UI supported by all devices. Integrate and handle your payments. Using Picktime you can conduct recurring appointments, one on one and group sessions, with attendance and waitlist. Not only this, Picktime will send automatic email and SMS reminders for the bookings to the members.
Sign up for free today to know its exciting offers and plans!
Now, to sum up, all that is left for you is to take action. Eventually, the success of the business is always measured by the profitability of your business. Commit, follow the plan, and take the first step to start a business from home.
