Starting a small business

Documents You’ll Need When Starting a Small Business

One of the primary steps in getting your new business off the ground is getting the requisite documents together that you will need for your new company.

One of the primary steps of getting your new small business off the ground is getting your requisite documents together. There are contracts, government requirements, and several financial papers. Let’s take a look at just some of the important paperwork that you will need for your new company.

Permits, Certificates, and Licenses

In order to operate in most jurisdictions, a business is required to apply for a general license, at the least. That said, some governments will require particular permits and certificates, depending on local laws and the type of business you are operating. For example, restaurants, bars, and nightclubs need additional licensing.

DBA, LLC, or Corporation Paperwork

Sole proprietorships, limited liability companies (LLCs), and corporations are all different types of business structures and each requires that you file specific documents with your home state. Sole proprietors, or those that are the sole owners of their companies, need to file a “doing business as” document, or DBA, to register a business name that differs from their own. This is required to open a business checking account.

On the other hand, if you want to create an LLC, you will need to file Articles of Organization with the state which should contain all the necessary information pertaining to your company. LLCs are set up to protect business owners from liability and their company’s financial obligations. Corporations, which are entities within themselves, likewise would file Articles of Incorporation with the state.

Certificates of Incumbency

A certificate of incumbency is a document that is officially issued by a corporation, listing its board of directors, officers, and key shareholders, or an LLC, listing its members.

Federal Tax ID Documents

Any business that is not a sole proprietorship will require a federal tax ID. Sole proprietorships are basically the same legal entity as their owners, so the business owners’ Social Security numbers work in the same capacity for their businesses.

Bank and Financial Documentation

This can include loan documentation, profit and loss statements, bank account statements, payroll reports, and balance sheets. Not only are these papers important for tracking company growth over time, they will also be necessary if you need to secure future financing from financial institutions or investors.

In conclusion, having the appropriate documents to set up your business will ensure that it is operating properly in accordance with local, state, and federal laws. While you can find resources online with regard to startup documentation, it is always best to contact an attorney for the best advice.

Finance Tips for Starting a Small Business

Creating and operating a small business can be challenging, but you can achieve this goal with patience, hard work, and commitment. The article is about finance tips you can use when starting a small business.

Creating and operating a small business can be challenging, but you can achieve this goal with patience, hard work, and commitment. One of the most critical factors of a company is the financial aspect. Please continue reading about finance tips you can use when starting a small business.

Create a Business Plan

Knowing the type of company you want to begin, the future market, and the type of products and marketing strategy you will have in place is essential for small business owners. This information is included in the plan, along with finance startup costs. Suppose you are unsure of what your expenses could be. In that case, it will likely prevent you from obtaining the products, office space, staff, marketing, and other resources necessary for a successful opening. Therefore, creating a business plan that includes the finance costs is vital.

Gather Funds

You will more than likely need to spend your earnings and savings on the new business. If you do not have enough funds saved or you cannot get the money from other family members and close friends or potential business investors, it would be a good idea to apply for small business grants and loans. When doing the latter, it will take good credit scores and other factors. If your credit history is not the best, this doesn’t mean you have to give up altogether. With: Micahael Meoli suggests that you can take steps to improve your score while working on other aspects of the business, such as finding your target consumer base and establishing product and service strategies.

Learn More about Tax Regulations

There are more tax codes to follow with businesses than tax situations you have experienced as an individual employee. Some common errors include misreporting income, filing late, or underpaying taxes. Failing to know as much about tax regulations as possible could lead to significant financial setbacks, such as bankruptcy. When you do not pay these bills, it could also cause you to be denied lending from financial institutions and inhibit your company’s ability to grow, making tax preparation and assistance vital for new business owners. You should also know that even if you encounter such financially draining situations there are legal professionals out there who can help you throughout the process. You can find more information here and learn how.

Stay Within Budget

Even with all the budget planning, there are unforeseen expenses that could cause difficulties. However, it would help if you monitored your finances frequently and worked hard to stay within budget. This tip could also guide you and prevent you from making costly errors in terms of spending, production, hiring, and more. Even after your first years of business, it would be beneficial to create an annual budget to improve your ability to manage finances.

Before starting your small business, you should take some of the tips mentioned above into consideration. These are steps that could lower your odds of financial disaster and boost business success and stability.

10 Best Startup Business Ideas to Earn Money in India

Anything between 60 percent and 90 percent of all startups in the world flounder and fail during the first two years. Start working with a small business idea that you can manage easily and possess the necessary skills to keep it running.

India has one of the most vibrant startup ecosystems in the world. The Indian government provides fast clearances to Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) through its online portals. As a matter of fact, you can register a startup in India in less than a week.

Additionally, there’re several ways to get funding to launch a startup in India. We have several crowdfunding platforms from where you can raise some seed money for the startup. Or approach venture capitalists to fund the business initially.

And then we also have the Micro Units Development and Refinance Agency (MUDRA) loans for startups available from various public and private sector banks. Furthermore, entrepreneurs from certain communities can also get business loans on soft terms to launch a startup.

However, the main hurdle in launching a startup in India is the business idea. We have almost all sorts of businesses that’re fairly well established and running well. In such a scenario, finding the right business idea can prove difficult for some. Therefore, in this article, I will be discussing the 10 best startup business ideas to earn money in India.

10 Best Startup Business Ideas in India

Before I write about the 10 best startup business ideas in India, here’s something you should know about. Anything between 60 percent and 90 percent of all startups in the world flounder and fail during the first two years. That’s because entrepreneurs behind these startups don’t have adequate experience in that specific field of business.

Therefore, start working with a small business idea that you can manage easily and possess the necessary skills to keep it running.

Digital Marketing Agency

The digital marketing industry in India is projected to cross the $160 billion mark by the year 2025, according to a report by Goldman Sachs. This clearly indicates that there’s an ample scope to start a digital marketing agency as a startup business. However, to launch a digital marketing agency, you’ll require the necessary qualifications. These qualifications are fairly simple to acquire since there’re several excellent digital marketing academies in India providing both online and offline courses.

Food Processing Plant

About 35 percent of all food produced in India goes waste due to lack of food processing units and adequate cold chain logistics. Therefore, you could consider launching a startup business that processes food such as fruits and vegetables, meat, fish and poultry products as well as food grains among other items. This is a very profitable business too and you can easily get the necessary permits and licenses since the Indian government is actually encouraging entrepreneurs to enter the food processing business. You can also export processed food outside India since there’s a high demand for such products.

Dropshipping

Dropshipping is a relatively new business in India. You can launch a dropshipping business with very little capital. If you’re new to dropshipping, here’s a brief description of what this business is all about. There’re several wholesalers and manufacturers you’ll find on websites such as Indiamart.com. They offer products at wholesale rates. You’ll have to sign-up with these companies and suppliers for sending products to your customers. As a dropshipper, you’ll need own website or marketplace to sell these items. Whenever anyone places and order, you have to pass it on with the money to the supplier, after retaining your portion of the profit. The supplier ships the goods to the customer.

Milk Parlor

The demand for milk in India never goes down. As a result, there’s fierce competition between dairy cooperatives and companies to sell their products to the public and grab a larger slice of the market share. Therefore, you could consider a startup business of a milk parlor. In some states of India, dairy cooperatives are providing all the necessary infrastructure such as the freezers and refrigerators as well as signboards to those who’re willing to open their branded parlor. Nandini in Karnataka state is one example. All you need to show is a commercial premises located in a busy business or residential area from where the startup can attract customers for milk and milk products, including sweets.

Medical Sample Collection Centre

Following the Covid-19 pandemic, most people that require their medical samples such as blood, urine, stool and sputum, among others to be tested, prefer a home service. This means, they’re willing to pay for someone to collect the samples from their homes instead of visiting a lab for the purpose. This directly implies that you can open a medical sample collection center as your startup business. This business earns money through labs, clinics and hospitals. They will pay you a monthly amount for collecting samples from patients on their behalf and handing over for testing. The one in highest demand is collection of oral and nasal swabs for Real Time- Polymeric Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) tests nowadays for people that wish to travel.

Blogging

Blogging is no longer the hobby that it once was. Instead, blogging has graduated as a startup business because it’s very simple to open a blog and make money. All you require to launch a blog is excellent knowledge about anything related to your profession, studies or even passions and hobbies. And you’ll need superb writing skills to create amazing content that people would love to read and engage with. Starting a blog with your own paid website is possible with an investment as little as Rs.3,000 per year. You can buy a superb domain name and website hosting as well as other essentials and start blogging. A blog makes money through Google AdSense, sponsored posts, affiliate marketing and native ads, among others. This is a simple, home-based startup business idea that requires very little capital to launch.

Meal Services

In some places, a meal service is also known as a “tiffin service.” Basically, it involves providing deliveries of meals for lunch and dinner to clients at offices and homes. This is an evergreen startup business idea since there’s no shortage of customers for meal services. All you require is a small team that will help you prepare food that people love, crew for packing and delivering these meals to customers. You can provide both veg and non-veg food or just veg or simply non-veg. The choice is yours. As a matter of fact, several entrepreneurs without much educational qualifications have become millionaires by opening a meal service business.

Health Drinks Stall

Have you ever been to a jogger’s park in your area? If not, I would suggest you visit one at the earliest. Usually, there’re some stalls that sell health drinks such as juices of various herbs, fruits and roots to joggers and health-conscious people that go for a morning walk or job. And these stalls prepare fresh juices and sell to their customers. You too can enter this simple business which involves working just during the morning and evening hours when people go for jogs and walks at parks.

Food Truck

While we’re still on the subject of food and drinks, here’s one more superb startup idea that you can try. And that’s opening a food truck. According to industry sources, starting a food truck doesn’t cost more than Rs.750,000 which includes the vehicle, commis equipment and permits. Dining out or having a snack at food trucks is trendy nowadays. As a result, you can see several food trucks parked outside malls and other busy places. You can offer superb meals through a food truck and make a lot of money.

Online Tutoring

Also, as an aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020, there’s a huge surge in the demand for online tutoring. Students from standard VIII to standard X and standards XI and XII require online tutors to help them crack the tough exams conducted by various educational boards. Since lots of brick-and-mortar coaching classes are now shut due to fear of spreading the Covid-19 contagion, you can offer coaching classes online. All you require is a website to advertise your courses and enroll students and software such as Zoom to conduct online classes. The e-learning industry is witnessing a boom and is expected to grow exponentially over the next few years.

In Conclusion

You can try any of these top 10 startup business ideas to become an entrepreneur. I’ve included only those business ideas that have a high rate of success and a superb demand from customers. As you can see, some of these startup business ideas also require low or zero investments. Therefore, you can select from any of these to launch own startup.

Why owning a franchise should be your introduction to small business

Starting a small business is a difficult process but getting into a franchise program can make it considerably easier.

Starting a small business is a difficult process but getting into a franchise program can make it considerably easier. Although franchises can be good options for even the most experienced entrepreneurs, they are disproportionately beneficial for beginners. Here are four of the top reasons why owning a franchise should be your introduction to small business.

You’ll Have a Roadmap to Work From

Franchises take a huge amount of the guesswork out of starting up a business. Essential questions like what to sell, where to source product and how to staff will be answered for you by the franchise company. Instead of using trial and error to develop a good business model, you’ll be able to work from an existing plan that has worked for other franchise owners before you.

You’ll Be Selling a Proven Product

Developing a product to sell is one of the hardest parts of starting a business. When you’re a franchise owner, though, you’ll be selling a product someone else has developed and fine-tuned. This saves you not only time but also the sheer cost of product development. By selling a proven product under a franchise arrangement, you can be sure that you’re delivering quality for your customers without putting months or years into creating a product of your own.

There’s Enormous Variety in the Franchise World

No matter what kind of business you want to be in, there’s a franchise opportunity out there for you. From traditional restaurant franchises to simple yard sign franchise businesses, there are literally thousands of potential businesses to choose from. In addition to offering you plenty of choices, the range of franchises allows you to pick the scale and complexity of the business you’ll be running. For first-time entrepreneurs, it’s usually best to pick something simple that can be run as a one-person business or with one employee to start.

You Get Immediate Brand Recognition

Finally, franchises allow you to build immediate brand recognition, rather than having to make a name for your own business. Instead of starting completely from scratch, you’ll be able to trade on the reputation of the company you’re acting as a franchisee for. As a result, you’ll be able to streamline your marketing and hit the ground running.

As you can see, franchises are excellent opportunities if you’re getting into the business world for the first time. Once you’ve got the hang of running a franchise, you’ll be able to start your own business or secure another franchise to add to your first one.

4 Easy and cost effective ways to advertise your small business on your own

Lack of money doesn’t mean you can’t advertise, you need to find some inexpensive ways to advertise.

If you’re just starting out in business, then you know how difficult it can be to build up your list of clients. Chances are you probably don’t have a very big advertising budget, either. However, a lack of money doesn’t mean you can’t advertise. Instead, you need to find some inexpensive ways to advertise. Here’s a look at four of them.

Social Media

Business owners who understand who their ideal customer is can use social media to interact with these potential customers in a natural way. One simple way to do this is to utilize Twitter chats. Also, you can take help from professionals like Sarah Mae Ives Social Media, Inc.

For example, say you own an online specialty food store. One way to find potential customers is to participate in a foodie chat on Twitter. The people who are on the chat would be potential customers for you because many of them are foodies who like to try new things. You can chat with them, encourage them to follow you on social media and eventually, you may even turn them into customers. You can find a list of chats related to your business on Tweet Reports.

Paint on Your Car

Car paints can do more for your business than just give your vehicle a nice, shiny new color. Your car can become a traveling billboard for your business, especially if your business is primarily local. If you must drive around town a lot, then make sure that you paint information about your business on the exterior of your car. This information should include your business name, the phone and location if it’s relevant.

Email Newsletters

Do you know that nearly 90% of all marketers believe that email marketing is their most effective way to advertise? If you have an established email list, then make good use of it by sending out regular newsletters to your subscribers. You can advertise upcoming sales, offer industry advice or highlight a particular customer of yours.

Video By Julian Goldie

Attend Conventions

For many business owners, business-related conventions can be the lifeblood of their new business. If you’re looking for a way to find people who would be interested in what you offer, conventions are the place to go. By their nature, they appeal to people who are involved in specific industries or who have specific hobbies.

In other words, if you sell comic books (for example), then you should go to ComicCon. The people who attend a convention like this tend to love comics. While you may not be in the comics industry, it’s likely that there are appropriate conventions for your industry. Setting up a trade show booth at one of these events pretty much guarantees that you’ll have a steady stream of potential new customers.

Every business needs a steady supply of customers to remain afloat. However, if you are a new business owner, then a steady supply of customers is probably something you don’t yet have. You may also be short on money, but that doesn’t have to stop you from advertising.

Using any one of the advertising methods in this post, either by itself or in tandem with another one on the list, can help you grow your business, even if you don’t have much money.

Planning to Buy Equipment for Your Small Business? Don’t Proceed Without Reading These 4 Essential Tips

If you need equipment for your business, you’ve come to the right place

Starting a small business can be one of the most exciting times of your life, and the idea of how many opportunities and the direction your life could be heading is amazing, which is why it’s important to make sure you’re doing things right.

One of the most important things you’ll want to be thinking about is investing in the equipment you’ll need to get everything off the ground, but this is a serious consideration because you won’t want to waste your money, nor experience problems later down the line.

If you need equipment for your business, you’ve come to the right place as today we’re going to explore the four essential tips you need to know to have the best experience possible.

1. Only Getting What You Need

The first thing you’ll need to do is make sure you’re only investing in the equipment you actually need. It can be tempting to think ahead and try and get everything you could possibly want, but in most cases, you won’t need all this, and you’ll be wasting your money.

Instead, ensure you’re only purchasing the bare essentials to help you start becoming profiting, and then think about what you need when you need it later down the line.

2. Securing Your Investment

The chances are you won’t have all the money you need to invest in expensive equipment off the bat, so you’ll need to think about where you’re going to get your investment from.

You may have investors, or a bank or business loan, but wherever you’re getting your funds from, make sure the payment plan is best suited to you and your financial needs.

3. Storing Your Equipment Securely

One of the most overlooked aspects of buying equipment for your business is the security of it. It can be heartbreaking to invest so much money into your business, only to have it stolen or damaged when you least expect it. Think about security.

If you’re keeping your equipment in an office, make sure you have cameras, locks, and passwords on everything to keep things as safe as possible. If you have larger equipment, consider what secure equipment storage options are available to you.

4. Balancing Quality and Price

It can be easy to fork out a ton of money on the best equipment possible, as it can be easy to spend as little as possible on the cheapest version of the equipment.

Instead, try to find the right balance on buying equipment that suits your budget, but isn’t too cheap it’s going to break or malfunction easily which means you’ll need to reinvest and waste your money.

Summary

As you can see, there are lots of things you’ll need to think about when it comes to investing in equipment for your business, and this is only scratching the surface. When kitting out your business, it’s important to make sure you’re staying neutral and not getting too excited, while buying smart, instead of potentially throwing your money away.