How to Become an Entrepreneur

Are you still on board? Good — that means you’re someone who’s willing and ready to take the steps to becoming an entrepreneur. Let’s keep going!

2. Find Something You’re Passionate About

Now that we’ve established that you have that entrepreneurial spirit, it’s time to figure out what you want your startup to be! There are four major things to consider when creating your startup:

• Make sure you're passionate about it. Do some soul searching — what are your values and how can your new business align with what matters to you?
• Fulfill customers’ needs. How does your business make consumers’ lives easier or better? While this is your business, your focus should be on others. Look at the market and decide what’s in demand and how your business can supply consumers with what they need.
• Make a profit. You want to keep doing what you’re doing so ensuring you can keep the lights on for your business is important! Be sure to think about everything that goes into your business — time, supplies, labor, etc. — and what it’ll take to earn all that back, plus extra to pay yourself too.
• Find your unique selling point. Whether it’s your brand story, a never-before-seen product or a product or service that’s exceptionally better than what’s out there, you need to stand out from the rest.

Take some time to think it through. Once you find your winning idea, it’s time to do your research.

3. Do Your Research

Research may not be the most exciting part of the job, but it’s crucial for an entrepreneur! Dig into current markets, your competitors, target audience and more. Treat your research like a class project — collect, analyze and put your findings together in a formal document or presentation. It’s more work, but it’ll pay off in the long run.

Once you do your research on everything that impacts your business, it’s time to take an analytical look at your own startup. Create a SWOT analysis to determine your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and potential threats. Then, you can formally write down your goals based on your research. Remember to think of SMART goals to ensure they are detailed and accomplishable.

4. Build Your Network

Making connections is an essential step to becoming an entrepreneur. Leveraging your network can open opportunities to investors and resources. And there are plenty of ways to build bridges to those resources!

3 Tips for Building Your Professional Network:

• Attend online or in-person webinars
• Get involved with professional organizations
• Reach out to people through social media platforms like LinkedIn

5. Test Your Idea

Before you put your new business out into the world, it’s a good idea to get a taste of how it’ll do. Test your product or service with a small group of people and ask for feedback. Both positive and negative feedback can help you adjust to get your business ready for the real deal.

6. Start Your Business

Next step to becoming an entrepreneur is to make it official! It’s time to launch your marketing campaigns and get the word out about your new business.

Sometimes this new business is your new full-time job, or you might ease into your new business by starting it as a passion project or side-gig to your current employment. Not a shabby idea! You can always slowly transition into make your business a full-time endeavor or keep it as something you do on the side. No two paths of entrepreneurism are alike — and that’s a good thing!

Remember, success doesn’t happen overnights — your business will need time and persistence to see results. Try to stay positive and give it your all from the start.

7. Continue to Scale Your Business

Lastly, make sure to monitor your business and scale up to keep the momentum going! Consider speaking to soliciting investors, crowdfunding, venture capitalists or other avenues for support to grow your business. The more you can increase funding, the more resources and support you have to take your business to the next level.