1. Basic thoughts for a startup business 2. Niche / Problem (this is mostimportant) Most businesses fix or help problems thatother businesses have not found a nichein. Go through the week with a notepad andwrite down all the problem areas that youfind including the thoughts of It would benice if their was a product or service for No need to re-invent the wheel, there aretons of wheels out in the world that stillneed improvements. 3. Answer to the problem / Solution Find a logical and meaningful answer tothe problem. Make a niche market out of it, jump outsidethe box. Problems are hard to solve, if it was easyeveryone would be doing it. Make the solution realistic, put yourself inothers shoes and be sure it would befeasible for others. Make meaning Have;goals, missions, value, stategy 4. Who would benefit / Market KNOW who your market is! KNOW who your market is not! Explain target market and who would wantto use your solution to the unmet needproblem. Why would they benefit, be realistic. 5. What type of business model? (llc, soleproprietor, partnership, huh what?) Are you selling a good or a product? Are yougiving items away and not making a profit offthe items? (you can still ear an income). Think of what bad could happen if thebusiness/solution/niche goes south. This willhelp gain knowledge of what model andprotection is best fit. Also think of how large the business might be-Global? Small city? Documentation, Risk, Management , andTaxes are the four main differences in each 6. Business Plan(failure to plan, is planning to fail) What is your niche/solution again? Write itdown, main focus. How much money will it take? Estimate highand use real data. How can this niche/solution be made?Outsource? Employees? Only you? Onceagain find data and use it. How much effort do you want to put forth?Work long hours for months for little to no pay(yes this is real) to get things started? Or pitchthe idea and sell it? 7. Competition (similar types of products or servicesyou will be butting heads with) For any part of your service or productresearch to see who might be doing italready or close to it. More data you have on your competitionthe better, know them inside and out. SWOT Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. You need to know SWOT onyour business and others. Get to knowSWOT very well. List at least 3 competitors, you have 8. Make a demo! You will need to make some type of demofor you good or service. Main reasons for a demo Will it work andhow much will it take to do a fullscale, does the idea really work after youdemo. Demo can open more opportunities, writedown what worked and did not work well. 9. Finances (Money talk- If it dont make dollars, itdont make sense) Can you pay out of pocket for yoursolution? Will it take other finances? Look up other financial routes suchas, loans, grants, investors. Does it make sense to you? Does it makeenough money to cover expense and payyou back for all the hard work? How can you redesign your model to helpwith finances? 10. HELP!!! (there is helpuse it!) Small Business Administration (SBA) Service Corp of Retired Executives(SCORE) Mentoring resources Business incubators Advisory boards and partners If you dont know what these are Googlethem, tons of information about thesedifferent types of help sources. USE THEM!!!