The Pre-inception Stages:
1) Prepare a plan
2) Detail the plan
3) Involve experience and take advice or do research
4) Know Your Audience Again Know them more closely
5) Check the competition
6) Evaluate and Breakdown the RISKS
7) Repeat step 6 until you are a confident of mitigating RISKS
Plan Vs Aspiration (In the operations Phase)
It is important to prepare a plan not to long and not too short. An ideal plan should be covering for next 18 months. In addition to the plan you should have also a long term aspiration of where you want to see your business maybe after 5 years or 10 years.
It is very important to differentiate between a plan and an aspiration. You should have a clear short term plan, but there should be a very clear long term aspirations. It is commonly known of entrepreneurs and professional to overestimate the short term plan and grossly underestimate the long term aspirations. As a result what happens is due to short term setbacks the zeal to carry on is killed and dumped in the process of moving on to something which is currently more viable and more sensible.
This is why it is important to have good and thoughtful long term aspirations. If the dream to reach the target is stronger than the quantitative and financial set backs in the short term plans then you have higher chances of succeeding as an entrepreneur than surrendering to a secure job. The enormity of the dream will keep you tied to your business and give you the emotional energy to carry on.
Institutionalize Your Business
If you are working 24x7 and 365 a day then it quite likely that you have not institutionalized your business.
It is important to institutionalize and organize the distribution of work to apt associates in order to keep your focus on strategic tasks and decisions of your institution. Finding or developing such associates is a key success factor of your business endeavor.
Understand the Cash Flow
There are numerous CEOs who are excellent product guy, sales guy, operations guy. But they tend to underestimate finance and the amount of cash-flow that is necessary for the business to keep it alive, or to scale-up. You need to hone up the finance skills or get associates who can do it for you in order to survive the tough times that are eventually bound to come in any business.
You need to plan your funding very carefully. Because getting the money is important but it is more important to get it in the right time. Raising too much money before generating revenues will lead to too much dilution of equity. It is great to have angel investors in the initial phase.
The Paperwork:
When you are confident about mitigating the risks and the excellence of your plan you can start the paperwork. The step by step process is mentioned at:
http://trak.in/tags/business/2009/07/01/starting-business-in-india-simplified-process/
Another helpful page is:
http://tropicalmanager.blogspot.com/2007/06/starting-company-in-india-regulatory.html
1) Prepare a plan
2) Detail the plan
3) Involve experience and take advice or do research
4) Know Your Audience Again Know them more closely
5) Check the competition
6) Evaluate and Breakdown the RISKS
7) Repeat step 6 until you are a confident of mitigating RISKS
Plan Vs Aspiration (In the operations Phase)
It is important to prepare a plan not to long and not too short. An ideal plan should be covering for next 18 months. In addition to the plan you should have also a long term aspiration of where you want to see your business maybe after 5 years or 10 years.
It is very important to differentiate between a plan and an aspiration. You should have a clear short term plan, but there should be a very clear long term aspirations. It is commonly known of entrepreneurs and professional to overestimate the short term plan and grossly underestimate the long term aspirations. As a result what happens is due to short term setbacks the zeal to carry on is killed and dumped in the process of moving on to something which is currently more viable and more sensible.
This is why it is important to have good and thoughtful long term aspirations. If the dream to reach the target is stronger than the quantitative and financial set backs in the short term plans then you have higher chances of succeeding as an entrepreneur than surrendering to a secure job. The enormity of the dream will keep you tied to your business and give you the emotional energy to carry on.
Institutionalize Your Business
If you are working 24x7 and 365 a day then it quite likely that you have not institutionalized your business.
It is important to institutionalize and organize the distribution of work to apt associates in order to keep your focus on strategic tasks and decisions of your institution. Finding or developing such associates is a key success factor of your business endeavor.
Understand the Cash Flow
There are numerous CEOs who are excellent product guy, sales guy, operations guy. But they tend to underestimate finance and the amount of cash-flow that is necessary for the business to keep it alive, or to scale-up. You need to hone up the finance skills or get associates who can do it for you in order to survive the tough times that are eventually bound to come in any business.
You need to plan your funding very carefully. Because getting the money is important but it is more important to get it in the right time. Raising too much money before generating revenues will lead to too much dilution of equity. It is great to have angel investors in the initial phase.
The Paperwork:
When you are confident about mitigating the risks and the excellence of your plan you can start the paperwork. The step by step process is mentioned at:
http://trak.in/tags/business/2009/07/01/starting-business-in-india-simplified-process/
Another helpful page is:
http://tropicalmanager.blogspot.com/2007/06/starting-company-in-india-regulatory.html