How to start a successful small business

How do I suitably start a small business? What are the stages in which the establishment and launch of the project can pass? What are the financing options and how to manage the budget? What about the business plan?

These are some of the most important questions that come to the mind of everyone who thinks to establish a project, whether it is small, medium, or large.

The phases of the project establishment process are always the same for the different types of projects and areas in which a project can operate. Therefore, in this topic, we will learn about the steps and stages of establishing a small or large project, and what each of these stages includes.

How do I start a successful small business?

Here we will learn about the foundation steps and what each stage should include:

Determine the budget

The first and most important stage of all is the budget and the money you have for your project, as the capital that you own is what will determine the type and size of the project that you will work on. There are projects that you can work on without capital, projects that you can work on with a limited capital, and other projects that require a large capital.

The budget is usually divided into several parts, to be as follows:

Assets

It is all the basics of the project, which cannot be worked without, for example, if the project is a restaurant, you will need a kitchen to prepare food and all kitchen equipment, otherwise you will not be able to work on the project. That is, assets are the infrastructure of the project, including tools, equipment, workplace, devices and equipment you need, and other project basics.

Product

By product, we mean what your project will deliver, whether it is a tangible product or a specific service. For example, an electronic devices maintenance center, the maintenance of devices is the product, and the falafel restaurant whose product is falafel, while a programming company whose product is the programming services it provides.

But if you are wondering why we put the product under the budget line because the product often needs capital so that you can manufacture it in case it is a tangible product or even a service that will also need money.

Suppose that the project provides translation services, the product is the "translation service", but you need someone who provides this service, either you will do this service or you will employ a translator to provide the service in the name of your project, and the translator needs to get his fees, this is called the value of the product.

Likewise, if your product is fast food, you will need raw materials to make the meal, such as meat, bread, vegetables, and the rest of the spices and components of the meal, and these also need money, so part of the budget will be allocated to the product along with the assets part, as we explained above.

Marketing

One of the important sections within the budget that is often overlooked in projects and then this neglect results in negative consequences that have a great impact is the marketing budget. Today, marketing is an important part of the work of any project and without good marketing, it is difficult to achieve little success amid huge competition at various levels And in various fields.

Marketing ensures visibility, competition, and access to different segments and classes of customers, and thus more sales and profits. Therefore, you must pay much attention to this aspect, as it depends on the success or failure of the project.

The marketing budget differs from one project to another, but in all cases, you have to have a clear marketing plan in which you know what you will need from the budget for the various marketing activities that you will undertake to publicize your project.

Of course, in each of these parts, there is great flexibility, in addition to the quality of the project that affects the budget greatly, for example, some projects do not need a large marketing budget and some do not need marketing at all. Some projects you can work on from home and thus will not require a workplace or a lot of costs on assets and project basics.

But in general, you will need to focus on these aspects when working on your project, and this is in terms of budget of course. In the following lines, we will know other aspects to answer your question: How to start a small business

work plan

The business plan is developed based on the project and the budget that you own, and it is a detail of each stage of the work and the project sections and what you will provide in terms of product or service, the audience, competitors, and marketing.

The most prominent parts of the business plan:

Summary

It contains a simple summary of the project, what products or services it will provide, why it will provide it, the vision of the project, what it aspires to, and the mechanism of work, briefly and clearly, so that it gives the reader a general idea about the project and the nature of its work.

Project strategy

It contains details of the project's work, the mechanism for starting it, securing the products or services and its assets, in addition to details of the project's objectives, growth plans that it will follow, the public, target groups, competitors, and the market in which your project will be active.

This section of strategy usually contains many subsections, such as growth strategy, marketing strategy, finance, competition, and project objectives.

Operating plan

It is also part of the project's work plan, and it contains a statement explaining the details of operating and managing the entire project, in addition to securing all the requirements that the project needs for that. This section may include a description of the daily operations within the project and the various requirements as well as the management of these processes.

HR

This is if the project will require team work, as you must determine the necessary skills and how you will acquire and manage them as well.

These are the most prominent sections of the business plan, of course, along with many other details. We talked about how to write a business plan in detail in a previous topic. You can refer to the article to learn about this topic in more detail.

Implementation

This stage is the actual launch stage of the project where you start working on your project and implement the above mentioned in the work plan and budget. It is now assumed that you have a clear action plan with all the details to begin implementing and working according to it.

Project implementation usually goes through several stages:

Step one

It is the stage that immediately follows the processes of building the plan, in which the project is not based on the land, but in a way to be in place during the coming period, at this stage work is done on tasks such as securing the necessary financing and specified in the budget plan as we said, and then securing the assets it needs The project and work requirements, as well as at this stage, work is done on matters such as assembling the work team if the project needs a team.

This is in addition to the operations of securing the raw materials needed by the product or finding sources from which you can secure these materials, searching for appropriate prices, and determining the target markets, the public, and the categories of customers and customers.

Step two

The second stage of the implementation of the project mainly focuses on marketing along with other important matters for the project, at this stage the actual communication is made with the markets and target audience groups, although it is often not direct communication, but an initial form of communication.

The importance of this stage lies in that you can consider it as an experiment, so that based on it you can expect the audience's reaction to what you offer in your project in terms of products or services, and if he will accept the idea, this is in addition to the possibility of preliminary presentation of the service that your project intends to provide and then taking opinions Clients and potential clients to introduce any proposed developments or amendments to them.

Also, at this stage, work is being done on the final preparations for the project to be already in place, so that you can move to the third and final stage.

Step three

The last stage of the implementation stages, here the project is already in place and it has become possible to provide products or services to customers and clients, the most important thing that you must take into account during this stage, which is the first period of the life of the project or the beginning stage, you should not expect to achieve achievements during this stage.

Mostly if you can secure only operating costs it will be a good thing, and this is according to many opinions of experts in project management and establishment.

It is better for you at this stage to focus on building a good service or product, with which you can create a strong brand presence in the market and the minds of customers and customers, and then it will be appropriate to think about increasing sales and starting to make profits.

These are the three main stages of the project implementation and launch process, during which the action plan that was developed in a previous stage is implemented as mentioned.

To be so, we got to know how to create a small project and the most prominent stages that the project can go through, starting from the idea stage, then the plan, through the budget, until the implementation stage, as well as what should be included in each of these stages during our answer to the question How to start a small project