Small Business Startup: 27 Things To Know Before You Open

Updated January 4, 2024. Starting a new business can be one of the most rewarding experiences of a lifetime. It can also be the most demanding.

I understand the desire of so many who want to own their own business - especially if they’ve worked in a store, had a job, or have a hobby to base it on. But If you’re not ready to handle those demands, then you’re not ready to start your own business. A business will not stay open and profitable just because you dreamed it would.

As a former franchisor and retail consultant, I’ve helped many people navigate the finer details of a business idea. This post is more of a self-assessment than a planning checklist.

Here are 27 tips to help you decide if starting a new business is right for you.

Assessing Yourself

• Personal Investment: You’ll work long hours away from your family and friends. You’ll also need to give up spontaneous weekend trips with your significant other and miss many dinners out with friends, sports activities, kids’ birthday parties, Saturday night baseball, shopping trips - and save all of the money to do these things so you have the cash flow to keep your doors open.

• Family Investment: Can your family deal with the time you’ll invest in opening a business? Many businesses sink under the weight of your missing presence from home. Your kids will have to deal with seeing less of you. You will have to deal with whatever way they take out their disappointment and anger. You’ll need the emotional strength to handle it all AND run a thriving business.

• Time Investment: You must be prepared to work 60-80 hours a week for the first few years. Not months - years.

• Investment Risk: Are you willing to put all of your assets and relationships on the line for your business? That’s what being an entrepreneur means. There are no safety nets!

• Losing Your Investment: Can you handle it if your gamble doesn’t pay off? Many new businesses fail. Can you and your family survive the emotional and financial costs if your business doesn’t succeed?

Planning for Success

• Market Research: Is there a need for your services in your community? You can use a retail consultant like me to help you evaluate the market in your area. There are already too many places to buy too many things.

• Naming Your Business: You need to pick a name no other business uses and then register it. And when you pick your name, you must ensure it is available as a web domain and on social media. Otherwise, you could get in trouble when you open your doors.

• Operating Assets: Do you have the money to keep operating until you reach your break-even point?

• Business Plan: A retail consultant like me can help you form a solid business plan around your idea. A business plan will help you secure loans and keep you on track.

• Long-term Support: Do you have the money to keep operating if you don’t reach your break-even point when you expect to? Plan for success but have a fallback. You don’t want to be turning off the lights to save on the electric bills.

Dealing with Bureaucracy

• Location, Location, Location: Have you found a storefront, or are you operating out of your home? Either way, your store must comply with local, state, and federal regulations. This could be as simple as installing a smoke detector or as complicated as putting a wheelchair ramp in your front yard.

• Type of Business: LLC, Sole Proprietorship, Corporation, etc.? The kind of business you choose will impact tax filings, licensing, and more.

• Licensing and Taxes: Can you meet the requirements for licensing and keep up with all of your tax documents? Most states require quarterly filings, so you’ll do taxes four times a year. If you hate that stuff, it doesn’t matter; you’ll either have to learn or pay someone.

• Insurance and Bonding: You’ll need insurance on your property, merchandise, employees, vehicles, etc. You and your employees may have to get a surety bond depending on your services. That can really impact your hiring of friends and family.

Day to Day Operations

• Vendors, Suppliers, etc.: Dealing with deliveries and pickups will take you away from other business activities.

• Packaging and Shipping: Shipping orders take extra time and preparation.

• Mountains of Paperwork: Everything you do creates more paperwork. Managing it could be a full-time job.

• Unhappy Customers: Be prepared to deal with angry and rude customers frequently. When you are brand new, you’re going to make a lot of mistakes. Customers will notice and complain. Can you deal with that?

• Tasks Eat Your Day: Can you give up the fun parts of running a business to handle the multiple details you need to handle as a successful business owner?

• Competition: You must be able to recognize when your market shifts or new competition crops up in your neighborhood or, more likely, online.

• Technology: You have to be up-to-date with current technology so you can use it to market your business, monitor customer reviews online, and use social media effectively.

• Employees: You better like people because without them liking you, you won’t be able to provide an exceptional experience to your customers. You’ll deal with their crap whether you like it or not.

Personal Growth

• Perseverance: You need to tough it out during the hard times and maintain focus during the good times.

• Flexibility: You will be wrong. Accept it, make changes, and move on.

• Customer Service: You can’t always make customers happy and make money. To avoid being taken advantage of, you have to remember that you’re a merchant, not a charity. Do your best, but don’t sink your business trying to please everyone.

• Employee Relations: Just like customers, they won’t always be happy. Don’t use personal attachments as an excuse to keep a bad employee.

• Walking Away: If the time comes to walk away, you must be willing.

When you own a startup business, you won’t be able to immediately buy a three-bedroom house on the sand in Newport Beach or have your minions run your successful store while you vacation in France. But you will be able to find out just who you really are and what you are capable of.

These aren’t all the considerations you need before you start your own business, but you need to candidly look at your own skill sets, motivations, and personal tolerance for risk and the unknown before you open your doors.

Build it, and they will come only works in the movies.