Whenever we hear about entrepreneurs, Freedom, courage, and passion are the terms that come to mind. To start your own business, you can get inspired by a lot of things, maybe you are passionate about something and it’s been your dream since your childhood, maybe you don’t want to work under someone and wish to be your own boss.
The reason could be anything, in this article, I will tell you everything from start to end that you need to know to start your own business and to become a successful entrepreneur, covering everything from inception to execution.
1- Finding Your Business Idea:
So friends, the first step to start your business or start-up is that you must know what exactly you wish to do. What’s your idea?
Many people think that I need to think of an idea that no one has ever thought of. But according to me, it’s wrong thinking.
There are two reasons for this, the first is that there’s very little chance of thinking of such an idea that no one has ever thought about because there are more than 8 billion people in the world hence there’s a very low chance of it and the second and more important reason why you shouldn’t do this is that to start a business where there is no customer base established, no source of revenue, and no one has done trial and error no experiment that to do this business, such kind of revenue comes or problems arise, then it’s a very new thing and a very risky work.
So I would recommend you to not think of an idea that no one has ever thought of. In fact, you have to think about what you yourself like to do.
Here I would recommend you focus on two things, first what’s your passion, your interest what do you like to do? How can you give value to people from your work and how can you benefit people and give value that they will give you money in return
When these two things are clear, you can see which business already exists which coincides with these two things. Then study what kind of such businesses are already in the market and how they run.
For example, imagine if you love adventure sports like river rafting that’s the first thing then the second thing is how can you give benefits to people then here you can start an adventure sports company.
If this satisfies you then look at what all kind of adventure sports companies already exists. How do they function, study them, call and ask them about their business, and study their business model.
2- Create Your Business Plan:
The next step after this is to create a business plan.
Suppose you are starting your business tomorrow, then prepare the budget report for the full year from tomorrow to the year’s end, how much money will you need to start the business, and how much capital and investment will be required?
And in the whole year, how much will be the expenses what will be the profit that you will gain and where will you get the required capital and money that you will need?
Will you borrow it from your friends, ask your family, or take a loan from the bank?
Start a business where you don’t need to take a loan from the bank or any third person, start a business where you or your family can afford the initial investment because if you get into banks and your business fails then you will have to face a big loss and lots of problems. So think of a business where you can invest yourself and you have the capital or your family or friends are ready to give you that amount.
I’m suggesting this for the initial stage, once your business is established then you can think of taking a loan from the bank to move it to the next step. This way the risk can be minimized.
You can borrow the money from anywhere friends but the business plan that you have made for the year should be as detailed as possible. So that the investors will be convinced that this business will surely work if we invest in this then we won’t incur any loss and will gain only profit from the business.
Now that you have made your one-year business plan then we can move on to the next step.
3- Choosing the Right Business Entity and Government Registration:
The next step is to register your business with the Government.
According to the type of your business, there are different ways to register it these different ways are called business entities.
I will not be able to tell you all, but I’ll tell you the four main ways.
1- Sole Proprietorship
2- OPC, One personal Company
3- Pvt Ltd, Private Limited Company
4- LLP, Limited Liability Partnership
The First, oldest, and easiest way to register your business is, “sole proprietorship”. A proprietorship is a way to register your business where the business owner is you, whatever will be the profit or loss of the business will be your own profit or loss.
So in a way, you are personally liable for everything that’s happening with the business. Small business owners like shopkeepers use this way and register their shops as sole proprietors. For example, if you want to open a sweets shop then you will register your business as a proprietorship.
There are many benefits of proprietorship, here the government regulations are the minimum. To register your business as a proprietorship you have to go to the local authority. But, you can apply for proprietorship only if your company is on a small scale and not more than 4 people are employed because it becomes very risky if it’s on a large scale.
Imagine your company is of millions and you have incurred a loss in millions then it will be your own loss of millions, that you would not want hence in this case you should not do a proprietorship and if you want to keep your profit and loss different from the profit and loss of the company and want to keep separate legal entities, in such cases, there are different ways to register.
So there’s another way called OPC, One personal company. Here you are not personally liable if something is happening to the company. So here they can’t come to your house and ask you to leave your house, or car to repay against the failure of your company.
Since this is a one-person company you will have to be the director and shareholder of this company.
Once you have done the registration of your company as OPC then if your company’s name is Prestige Sweets then it will be Prestige Sweets and OPC in the brackets.
The next way to register your company is Pvt Ltd company. Here a minimum of 2 shareholders and 2 directors are required. The maximum limit of shareholders here is 200 and if you want more than that then you have to make a public limited company.
There’s limited liability here, so the shareholders have limited liability, so if there’s a loss in the company then the shareholders won’t have to pay for the loss personally. It’s a very reputable and credible way to register your business.
If you do so then the trust of customers and clients in your company and the trust of banks increases manifolds if your company has Pvt Ltd written, many start-ups register their company as Pvt Ltd or try to do so as it’s easier to get loans from the banks and also the seeds funding, the investors investing in the company becomes easy.
I would like to talk about another way to register your company and that is a limited liability partnership.
This is useful when you are a professional in a field like a doctor, engineer, or chartered accountant and this is useful when you are forming a company for a limited time and you are going to dissolve it afterward.
For example, you are a builder and you started a company to construct a building where you have employed workers, engineers, architects but after the building is constructed you don’t need that company and so you dissolve that company. Here this limited liability partnership comes into use.
These four ways which I’ve told you are the main ways and most of you will require this, you need to know that if you want to deal with the corporate field or large companies then the preferable way is Pvt Ltd only and if you want to keep your own small business and don’t want to get into more regulations then proprietorship is the best way.
So, friends, you have registered the company then we can move on to the next step.
4- Tax Registration:
The next step is to do the tax registration. Ensure compliance with tax regulations, with GST registration being a primary requirement for businesses exceeding a specified turnover. Other registrations such as Import-Export Code, Professional Tax, Employee State Insurance, Provident Fund, and optional MSME registration may apply based on your business activities, scale, and revenue.
6- Yearly Mandatory Compliances:
As the last step friends, I would like to tell you that there are a few things that a business has to do every year. It is Yearly Mandatory Compliance, the first thing is Income Tax Returns, every business has to file an income tax return at the end of the year.
The second thing is Accounting which you need to do and I would say that you must do it with care. It’s a balance sheet where all your profit, loss, money received, etc is done on a balance sheet. You can hire an accountant for this or if your company is small then you can do it yourself. If you are registered for GST then you have to file GST, It has monthly or quarterly compliance.
Next is secretarial compliance which you have to do if your company is OPC, LLP, or PVT LTD. Statutory Audit you will have to do if your company is OPC or LLP with a huge yearly turnover.
So, friends now you are ready to become an entrepreneur and start your own business.
Tips To Be a Successful Entrepreneur:
Toward the end of the article, I would like to give you some tips from my personal experiences because somewhere even though I’m an entrepreneur you can call this website a business too.
1- Focus on Value Delivery: My number one tip will be to always think about how can you give value to people, give value to the customer, client, to people, or to society. For example, Jeff Bezos through his company Apple gives value from his products, is making you get the value. I give you value through my knowledge and the knowledge you gain after reading my article. A sweets shop gives you value from its sweets, how tasty it is, and how much you like eating them.
So, all businesses give value and if you are going to focus on the value then your business will run well and somewhere I feel value can be given only when you enjoy working.
2- Follow Your Passion: Only do such business where your interest lies and you enjoy working.
3- Avoid unsustainable practices that may harm the environment or society: There’s no point in doing a business that runs in an unsustainable way which leads to destruction. I’ll give you an example of Adani’s business here, where he was making a coal mine on the Great Reef and affecting the natural resources.
There was no benefit of it, to say he said that it would generate employment and generate more electricity but due to such destruction who will like his company?
No one will respect such a person, so stay away from such business.
So I hope friends, you have got a lot of knowledge a lot to learn, and a lot of value from this article.
Share this article. Thank you.