The Entrepreneurs’ Story Creation Guide

Thinking about creating your own brand and launching an online business? Don’t get discouraged if you don’t have a business degree or your budget is tight. If you go online, you’ll see many examples of young entrepreneurs who started from scratch with just $50 bucks in a bank account and turned it into a multi-million business venture. You can do it too and start your own business.

Start up businesses maybe are having a hard time today, especially with a COVID-19 impact on all business processes. Besides, consumers are now more demanding than ever before. Still, you’ll find some successful examples of entrepreneurship out there and starting a new business is not as scary as you might think. 

If you go online, you’ll see many examples of young entrepreneurs who started from scratch with just $50 bucks in a bank account and turned it into a multi-million business venture.

However, do your homework and learn about steps to starting a business. Be ready to roll up your sleeves and take one step at a time. In this blog post, we provide you with some information you can consider for launching an online business and making a profit. 

Take a peek at the strategic steps that we’ve outlined and get more ideas about where to begin with starting a business.

Step 1. How to start a company by picking the right idea 

What do you need to start a business online?

First, decide whether an online business is actually right for you. Here are some examples of the most popular types of profitable online businesses: 

• Affiliate marketing (recommending products by placing referral links). 
• SMM and ads (posting, content planning, and creation, PPC advertising, working with followers).
• Selling own services and products (a tricky one, since it takes time to find and build clientele).
• Dropshipping (dealing with direct deliveries from manufacturers to the retailers, or end customers).

How to start your own business online?

Look at three most common types of stores you can build online: 

• online retail stores (online warehouse of products);
• third-party marketplace websites (creating a business by bringing both buyers and sellers to one place);
• subscription service (like Netflix or Spotify).

Once you come up with a business idea, spend some time developing an effective strategy which will draw potential customers to you and expand your business. Don’t expect overnight success. When entering any niche, take time to determine what distinguishes you from your competitors. Online businesses deal with real revenues, financial downfalls, failures and success, just like any brick-and-mortar business. And the competition is heavy among business entrepreneurs, it’s true.

If you are wondering – “what do I need to start a business?”, we have the right answers for you. Need to get more helpful information? Take an online course “Stop Being an Entrepreneur! Stop Creating Startups!”.This course was created by Robert G, a successful entrepreneur based in Switzerland. During this course you will get some hints on how to shift from a start-up to an actual business game and become successful. 

Here is another great online course for generating business ideas  – “Learn How to Rapidly Expand and Filter Your Ideas in a Day”. This course was created by Jef Lippiatt, a product developer and business strategist. Jef has already established a number of successful businesses, shares his extensive experience and knowledge. He’ll teach you some effective practical applications, such as affinity diagramming. 

He also guides through the process of sorting out and organizing information more efficiently for generating fresh ideas and getting actual results. Jef believes that his own methods and innovative ideas will get you through most of the potential pitfalls. This course will bring fresh energy to your business startup or will help opening your own business online. 

Step 2. How to start your own company with picking a name for your brand

Creating a unique and distinct name for your brand is essential, no doubt. However, while trying to create a decent name for your business, don’t dwell too much on it. Try to make sure that it’s self-explanatory or something ambiguous in case you’re in a fast-changing niche. 

Avoid such words like SEO, content Marketing, or social media in your brand’s name. These words pertain more to fast-changing industries and won’t add clarity to your brand name after all.

Step 3. How to start a new business with creating an original logo for your brand 

So, how to start a story without having an introduction? Designing an original logo for your brand is the next important step. The trick  here is to make a statement and deliver a clear message to your customers with a logo design. At the same time, you need to make sure that your logo doesn’t look like those of your competitors. 

How to start a logo building process?

You can go for FreeLogoServices and try this service online, which will let you create a logo in just a couple of clicks. Or you can take the online course created by Sorin Contantine, which also might be useful for you –  “Graphic Design For Beginners With Crello”. This course is great for entrepreneurs and marketers who want to take control of their own graphic design projects and create them by their own hands. 

With the Crello cloud-based free application, you will learn how to make cool graphic designs. Anything from social media posts to banners, animated posts, flyers, presentations, and many other types of designs will be right there on your plate. No more headache of trying to outsource these tasks.  

Step 4. How to create a company by making your website look good for consumers

How to set up a good-looking business website and make it work have always been amongst most essential questions asked by startup entrepreneurs. Sometimes spending a fair amount of money to hire a professional website designer is a good investment. If your website looks professional, making your own business looks good, it will definitely make a good impression on consumers. A sloppy looking website makes people think that the business is not trustworthy and can drive them away. You may also go for another alternative option – take some courses online and create your business website by yourself. Odds are it will take you more time to get it done. Plus, there is a chance you end up with something you won’t even like at the end.

A sloppy looking website makes people think that the business is not trustworthy and can drive them away.

Anyways, in case you want to learn more about website development, take one of the bestselling online courses –  “How To Make Money Selling WordPress Web Development Services”. This course was created by Sorin Constantin, who is one of the bestselling online entrepreneurs and marketers with an extensive knowledge in e-commerce. 

You will be provided with all the pros and cons of selling website development services. Among other things, like creating your own website with WordPress, you’ll learn how to create a vendor/business account and business offers. You’ll also get plenty of tips on starting your own business online and on how to maximize sales.

Step 5. How to create a business with finding a web host and reserving your space  

Is your website all set, looking good, and ready to go? The next step is to find a web host company to work with and register your domain. If you’re not sure what to look for while choosing a host, keep an eye on storage capacity.

Don’t forget about providing server security for your website, since this option minimizes risks and delivers confidence that all your data is stored at the safe place. Don’t leave out such important things like marketing tools and tools for e-commerce. For example, tools for managing or providing response forms or an easily accessible customer support service on an instant availability. 

Also, make sure that your web host is compatible with WordPress (highly rated CMS software) and offers an SSL certificate. SSL is also needed for security reasons. Here is the list of top pick web hosts for 2020: Bluehost, GoDaddy, NameCheap, HostGator, iPage, SiteGround.

If you want to learn more about web security and data protection, sign up for an online course “Build EU GDPR Data Protection & Privacy compliance from scratch (CIPT)”. This course was created by Roland Costea, a Cybersecurity & Privacy Leader and provides information on data privacy protection. You’ll receive a clear explanation of data privacy concepts, what is GDPR compliance, and a step by step guide on what to do with it. You’ll get recommendations on the most recent technology that can solve GDPR challenges. And much more.

Step 6. How to set up a business by getting more traffic

The Internet swarms with tons and tons of resources. Your website can be buried under millions of other sites. Just to prevent this from happening, try to drive as much traffic to your website as you can. Look for any possible ways which can help you with promotion of your online startup. 

Use either free methods or paid methods (for example, pay-per-click ads). Paid methods are usually much better because you’ll get results faster and they’re more scalable.

Few hints on promotion:

• registration with either Google, Bing, and Yahoo;
• promotion in the major blog directories; 
• lots of video content for better marketing; 
• podcasting;
• online advertising on major platforms like Google PPC and Facebook.

An alternative option is to go with direct mailing (sending letters). You can try offline marketing, which deals with promotional products, such as billboards, corporate vehicles, stationery, print advertisements, and so on.

Grinfer offers an online course created by Sorin Amzu, a digital marketing specialist with 10+ years of experience in marketing – “How To Promote Your Content Marketing Articles – The 5 Effective Methods”. With this course you’ll learn how to get more traffic to your website by promoting your marketing content. 

Another good course for getting more information on effective efforts for traffic increase was created by the same author –  “Email Marketing Masterclass”. You’ll get the insights for concepts of nurturing leads, how to use newsletters for promotion, and many other marketing techniques contributing to make your traffic grow.

Step 7. How to open a business selling physical or digital products

While starting a company, you need to think and decide what type of merchandise will bring you more sales. Today, products can be not only in physical format but 100%  digital and still make huge sales. Find courses online and learn how to deal with e-commerce digital stores and use e-commerce platforms for selling stuff. Here are some most popular e-commerce platforms, which are in the top five for 2020: WooCommerce(WP), Magento, Shopify, BigCommerce, Prestashop.

Go ahead and benefit from the online course “Growth Hacking with Digital Marketing”. Once you take the course, you will learn about growth hacking techniques and how to use them effectively. This course has already earned 5 stars on Google and was highly rated by users.

Another way to make profit is to deal with the category of earning sources – e-books, courses online, online training, and coaching, speaking, selling advertising, affiliate marketing, etc. Also, look at an option of selling audio and video content, franchising, organizing continuity programs (such as memberships). Teaching or giving lectures as a public speaker can also make additional money and drive more potential clients to your online store.

Step 8. How to own a business by dealing with online payments

Since you will be dealing with online transactions and payments, make sure that accepting and processing transactions won’t be a problem to your online business. Since not too many people send actual paper checks or fax order forms anymore, the most popular ways of accepting online payments would be PayPal and Stripe.

Another software created for running online payments: 1ShoppingCart, Infusionsoft, Samcart. Those are useful in case you want to advance options for shopping cart experiences.

Step 9. How to make a business by scouting and keeping an eye on your competitors

This strategy is effective when you’re taking steps to start a small business. You need to be strategic in collecting information about your competitors. Build your own audience for future sales. Scout around, collect tips, learn about all pros and cons. This doesn’t mean that you have to hack into other people’s computers, but just by keeping an eye on marketing and financial information available you’ll succeed in your own marketing campaigns. 

Go either online or subscribe to business periodicals that write about businesses that are relevant to yours, such as Harvard Business Review, Best for Personal Finance, Bloomberg Businessweek, etc.

Step 10. How to create your own business by seeking extra funding

Owning your own business is tough and you need to have a backup for financial security.  Create a comprehensive business plan because it will provide you with the benefit  of having a backup for funds security. Practically, companies that have a business plan on hand usually have higher rates of growth.

Once you have it all done, go ahead and visit a local bank to set an appointment with a loan officer. During a meeting provide a loan officer with an estimate on the amount of money you need for a start. Once the bank reviews your situation, you will be notified whether you qualify for a loan or not. 

Here is few types of loans that are offered:

• cash advance against credit card income; 
• equipment purchase loan; 
• equipment lease; 
• loan for a commercial mortgage.

If, for one reason or another, your bank decides not to provide you with a qualification, this is not the end of the world. You can either go for a personal line of credit or get funds from an online company such as PersonalLoans.com.

The lack of funds and bad credit history may become a sensitive issue. You can still find alternative ways to provide your business with finances. For example, by looking for an alternative finance provider who offers competitive loan products despite your bad credit history. At least you’ll get a chance to catapult your project into a higher income bracket. However, remember that this strategy can involve a fair amount of risk.

Here is a course for you on marketing plan strategies – “How to Write a Marketing Plan”. This course was created for existing entrepreneurs or business start ups who want to get practical advice on writing an effective marketing plan. After taking this course you’ll learn about its main components, such as Marketing Objectives, Situation Analysis, Marketing Strategy, etc.

Step 11. How to start your own small business by finding alternative ways to secure funds.

There are two alternative ways to secure funds: 

• venture capitalists firms (VCs)
• angel investors

An equity share is a number one requirement for all VC firms before they put money into your project. So, be ready to give up a portion of your business after you signed up for a deal with VCs. Plus, VCs expect to get their money back as soon as possible with a profit. They usually most willingly invest their money in firms that deal with software development and computer technologies, so if your business deals with other things, VC firms might not be right for you.

Angel investors provide their funding in exchange for convertible debt. They differ from VCs by providing funding for businesses that are just started, while VCs usually are getting involved much later. 

Often angel investors are entrepreneurs themselves. If you find the right one, you might get a great chance to gain their expertise, professional advice, or learn about management skills which made them successful.

In case if you’re thinking about selling your business, take an online course “How to Sell Your Business”. This course provides practical advice on how to determine the value of your business, what to do to be fully prepared, how to find the right buyer, and how to prepare a sales agreement. You’ll also learn some useful tips on effective negotiation techniques. 

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