Wondering how to start a business? You’re not alone – hundreds of thousands of people search for that every month. But what people are looking for varies by state, according to data from CenturyLink.
The most common small business query is “how to start a business,” but the top search query in thirteen states is “how to write a business plan.” “What business to start” was the third most-Googled question by state, with eight.
After that, the numbers tail off quickly. “How to get a business loan,” “how to build business credit,” and “how to come up with a business name” were each the top search queries in just one state. (Interestingly, New York’s top query was “how to advertise your business.” Evidently most New Yorkers are past the planning stage and well into implementation.)
Since the top three search queries are clearly top of mind for aspiring entrepreneurs, let’s take a brief look at each.
How to Start a Business
Age is nothing but a number, especially when it comes to entrepreneurship. A study conducted by the Census Bureau and two MIT professors found that the most successful entrepreneurs tend to be middle-aged, especially in the technology sector.
After compiling a list of 2.7 million company founders who hired at least one employee between 2007 and 2014, researchers found the average age of those who founded the most successful tech companies was 45.
In general terms, a 50-year-old entrepreneur was almost twice as likely to start an extremely successful company as a 30-year-old. And it gets even better with age: A 60-year-old startup founder was 3 times more likely to launch a successful startup than a 30-year-old startup founder, and nearly twice as likely to launch a startup that landed in the top 0.1 percent of all companies.
So don’t let age hold you back, because your experience is arguably your greatest competitive advantage – even if you don’t have direct entrepreneurial experience. The most successful entrepreneurs I know didn’t try to become something they were not; they started with who they are, and grew from there.
Like the high school drop-out who built a $50 million construction company. Or the high school drop-out who turned his personal beliefs into a blueprint for founding successful companies. Or the MIT grad who realized that small businesses could market in an entirely different way.
If you want to start a small business, who you are today is enough to get started.
Do you know how to drive? You could become an Uber driver and build from there. Are you good at coding? You could take freelance gigs and build from there. If you’re talented at building decks, you could start building decks for neighbors and grow both your business and yourself from there.
You don’t need to work or train or study to become an entrepreneur. You can become an entrepreneur today, and then work and train and learn to become a better entrepreneur. That’s the best startup advice. Instead of just looking for opportunities or trying to determine what is “hot,” start a business based on what you currently know, do well, or enjoy. (More on that in a bit.) Then, the rest will come a lot more easily.
How to Write a Business Plan
Lots of people start a business without a business plan. If you have strong business skills, work hard, and get lucky with the timing, you can construct a great business without creating any plans at all.
But it’s also accurate that your odds of success will potentially be lower. A plethora of studies demonstrate that planning heightens the likelihood of business success by at least ten to twenty percent.
Moreover, developing a business plan is often the initial step in concluding whether to actually start a particular business.
If your idea doesn’t work on paper, why squander time trying to make it work in practice?
At the very least, make sure you test your financial assumptions. If your business can’t turn a profit, it’s not a business. It’s just an expensive hobby.For more, here’s a comprehensive – and field-tested – guide to writing a business plan.
What Business to Start
The most important step in choosing which business to start is understanding what “success” looks like to you. If, for example, you’re passionate about cooking and your goal is to become a wealthy restaurant owner, the economics of the industry require owning multiple locations. This means you’ll need to build not just a single restaurant, but an entire restaurant business – which will leave you with little time in the kitchen.
But if your definition of “success” is being able to spend every day cooking great food, your goal won’t align with that definition – and no matter how wealthy you become, you’ll end up unhappy and unfulfilled.
So first determine what “success” means to you. Then consider your interests and skills, and what you enjoy doing. (Since we usually enjoy doing things we’re good at.) Add a filter: Make sure people will pay you for what you enjoy doing. For example: While you might enjoy watching TV, no one is likely to pay you – much less pay you well – to do it.
Then evaluate the potential of your business idea. How big is the market? Can you reach that market? How competitive is that market? What will make you different, and make you stand out?
Finally, consider your resources. Time. Money. Willingness to persevere. Willingness to struggle at first. It’s not enough to want to “be” something. You also have to be willing to do the work required to get there.
Though it may seem like you aren’t making any progress, especially if it’s for a while, remember that most successful entrepreneurs have gone through struggles. For many of them, the struggle is what made later success possible.
Learning, growing, and adapting from early days of hardships gave them the tools and mindset they needed to succeed.
The kind of business you start is important, but it’s the business you keep building by overcoming roadblocks and challenges that really matters.