We present the 5 steps you must follow to turn your idea into a profitable and successful business.

If you have an idea in your head that you are sure can be the solution to a problem, but you do not know how to transform it and take it to the real world, stay and read on because today we will give you a guide that will help you turn your idea into a successful venture.

The first thing you should know is that having a winning idea, or at least an innovative one, is half the way to have a successful venture. That’s why if you already have the idea of what you want to do, you just need to shape it and be consistent for that idea to succeed in your industry.

Do not worry if you are not sure where to start or how to put it into action, because here we will give you 5 steps to put that dream into action once and for all!

1. Know the market and your competitors

Many of the businesses or ventures that have failed quickly have a common problem: the lack of knowledge of the market and its competitors. It is very important that the first step you decide to take to start your venture is to know your market niche, although it seems that this advice is not very useful, the truth is that if you do it right you will have the necessary data to start your business and lead it to success.

When we decide to get to know the market, we are referring to a deep knowledge of the niche in which you want to develop. Among the minimum data you should collect are: who is the target audience, what are their needs, what needs does my business satisfy, who are the leaders in this sector.

Knowing your target audience is only part of what you should know about the market niche in which you want to develop, because another very important part is to know your competition: how many there are, what is the most successful business, what are the trends, how is their advertising, knowing this data will give you a very important advantage because you can know what strategies work best and what are the least.

Knowing your competition is a fundamental part to evaluate if an idea is good as a business or not, in a few words it tells you if it can be profitable or just turn into losses, because you can see if they have succeeded with it, what are their shortcomings and above all it is important because you can evaluate what they are not doing for you to innovate in that aspect, and present it as an added value of yours, for example, improve home delivery, refund or offer better customer service, in short any service that your competitors do not offer can be an area of opportunity for you.

2. Make a business plan

If you have already done the first step, this second step will be much easier because you will have most of the necessary data to build your business plan. Remember that planning is a fundamental step for any project and, in this case, it will also help us to obtain financing.

Broadly speaking, the business plan is the document where you state your objectives and goals for your venture. It must have at least the following elements:

• Executive summary
• Description of the venture
• Description of the product
• Market analysis
• Market structure
• Marketing Plan
• Finance information
• Administrative structure

As you can see, making a business plan forces you to sit down and list all the elements you need to start your business; making it will help you to know which are the weak points that you should strengthen before starting your business. If you want to read more about it you can look for our post dedicated to it.

3. Find financing

This is perhaps the most complicated step and why many entrepreneurs unfortunately desist from continuing with their project. If you also feel a little worried because you think you will never get the funding you need to start your business, you should know that nowadays you have many options to get those funds you may need to start your business.

Broadly speaking, you can obtain financing in two ways: through loans or funds. Each has specific advantages and disadvantages, so you will have to evaluate which is the best option for you.

Loans

Taking a loan is the way that comes to mind most quickly when you are designing the financing strategy and the truth is that borrowing is, perhaps, the oldest way of obtaining the capital to start a business. What you may not know is that these loans can be obtained through different entities, in addition to banks, for example you can ask government institutions or startup promoters, which have better payment plans than traditional banks.

The benefits of borrowing financing are that you can regularly access more money than with other means, you may even get 100% of what you need through loans, plus you will not have to account for your business to your creditors. However, the disadvantages can be many because you may only have access to them with very high interest rates.

Funding

This is one of the forms of financing that most startups are currently using. It consists of collecting funds from individuals or companies in exchange for something, this transaction can be from small donations in exchange for merchandise or they can give you a percentage of what you need in exchange for a percentage of the shares of your venture.

The advantages of this type of financing is that you do not have to return the money you have received from your funders. However, you may not raise what you need or if you have received money in exchange for shares you may lose influence in the decision making of your company.

If you want to learn more about different methods of financing for entrepreneurs you can read our post on the subject, where we explain each one in more detail.

4. Make a marketing plan

You will agree that one of the main concerns now that you want to start your business is to make people know your business or that it takes too much time to position your brand in your niche market.

That is why you should take the time to design a solid marketing strategy, which you can even start before the business itself, so that when it starts, you already have a base that knows your brand and it will be easier for you to position yourself.

In this, social networks and the Internet can be your best allies. If you are worried about costs, there are several tips that you can put into practice with very little investment; the most obvious and functional examples is to get a website or a blog that will help you position yourself in search engines.

Also, you can contact influencers with few followers and that has to do with your target audience to offer them free products in exchange for positive reviews on their social media posts, with this you will be building an audience before formally starting your business.

If you want to learn more about how to use social networks to your advantage and how to position yourself on the Internet you can read our post, where you will find excellent and useful tips.

5. Arrange all legal paperwork

Starting any bureaucratic procedure is a bitter pill to swallow and you have to get through it as quickly as possible when you want to start a business. If you don’t have much idea of how to initiate procedures before the SAT or the Instituto Nacional del Emprendedor or any other procedure before the authorities, don’t worry because nowadays there are several business incubators that can help you in every step of the process. There are also communities of entrepreneurs that can advise you at a very low cost, such as micromentor.org, an online service that connects small business owners with volunteer business mentors.

We don’t want to leave without giving you one last recommendation: be flexible with your venture, because it may be that the business idea you have in your head cannot be carried out as you have planned it, so you should be predisposed to the fact that you will have to make the necessary changes to make your business succeed.

Tell us, what did you think of this guide? Do you have any other advice for entrepreneurs?