What was the first step you took to make your business idea a reality?

Starting a new business can be an exciting, yet scary, process –from coming up with the idea for your products to drawing up a business plan that works for you, creating your brand, and finally bringing your business to life. There’s no one size fits all method to starting a business, but there are certain steps you can take to prepare yourself to launch your big idea. Forbes recommends considering these questions:

• Does your business idea solve a problem for you or someone else?
• Have you researched your potential market? 
• Do you have a defined audience?
• Have you validated your idea? 

As an example, Squarespace customers Ergo Chic and Soul Cap considered their own needs and the needs of people around them to create businesses that solved existing gaps in the market. 

What was the first step you took to make your business idea a reality? What recommendations do you have for emerging entrepreneurs? Share your experiences and learnings in the comments below!

Two complications where I see people get stuck:

1. Planning their business too much (then realizing it takes too much effort to continue). Losing motivation.
2. Having too high expectations. Losing motivation.

My advice: Start small

Start small with someting you love, as a complement to your current job or school. This way you will not have as high expectations, and view every small success as a win (= motivation).  

What I did:

I'm sure other peoples have other views to this which is great, but I started small and it worked perfectly for me. I started my first company when I was 18. Only earned $200 the first year, but as I continued growing I eventually dropped out of college to run my business full time.

Wish everyone good luck with their business ideas!🙌😊

What was the first step you took to make your business idea a reality?

I've always wanted to work for myself and I think something just clicked where I thought "why don't I give this business idea a go?" and I knew I would regret it if I didn't or look for another opportunity. I definitely think the first step was telling friends & family as you know it's real and can hold you accountability - even more so when you create a social media account. 

What recommendations do you have for emerging entrepreneurs?

Don't look too far in advance, it's harder said than done and if you want to give it a go but the idea of running your own business overwhelming, just set yourself a time frame like "I'll put 100% effort in for a year and if it doesn't work, then atleast you know you couldn't have done anymore". 

plus, look at logistics and see what else is working in the world that is similar to your own. 

Starting my business began with thinking about my skillset, creating a website, and offering my services. It was as simple as that. As time went on, however, and I received more requests for work, I thought more about my audience, my messaging, my services, and so on. I went through many revisions. 

I created this guide for anyone who is starting a new business - it covers everything from getting really clear on your messaging, designing for conversions, promoting your website, free resources, and more: 

https://tinycoastdigital.com/insights/a-how-to-guide-for-growing-your-new-business-online

 Hope you find it helpful 🙂

I think the best piece of advice I can offer through this journey is to give it a shot, you can always iterate, remain open minded and remember why you started. 

Wishing everyone who who started a business or considering new business ventures best of luck 😄

Definitely a business plan, I think it should be the first step for anyone who wants to start their own business. Careful planning takes time, but it's absolutely worth it. It is impossible to predict all the things that might go wrong, but it is very much possible to do some research and anticipate/minimize the risks.