Business Building Checklist: Idea Stage

Many of the entrepreneurs I have worked with come to me completely lost as to what they should be doing to start their business and just desperately want someone to give them a road map clearly laying out what to do.

They came up with an idea, dived straight into the fun stuff like branding and naming their baby, but haven’t put time into creating a strong business foundation. Sounds boring but without it you are basically picking paint colours for the master before even digging the foundations of the house.

Do you want a road map of what you need to do to build strong business foundations?

I’ve compiled a checklist of everything you need to do to build a strong foundation for your business, based on the process I’ve used to support hundreds of entrepreneurs over the last decade.

Once you go through these steps you will be able to develop a strong brand voice, marketing that converts and be selling something your customers really need and value.

Idea Stage Checklist

Step 1

Understand what it means to be an entrepreneur – Talk to some entrepreneurs to get the real picture of what it is like to run a business

Step 2

List your interests, passions and skills. Find the intersection, does your business idea fit in there? What skills do you need to develop in order to be able to run your business?

Step 3

Define your why – Why do you want to run this business? What will keep compelling you to carry on during the challenging times?

Step 4

Define your business values and mission

Step 5

Map out your offering and how it benefits your customers

Step 6

Define your income model

Step 7

Calculate the income requirements of the business based on your personal survival budget, is this realistic?

Step 8

Identify and define your target market

Step 9

Identify any limiting beliefs that might hold you back from being successful

Once you have worked through the idea stage checklist, you need to move onto validating your idea.

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