Starting a Small Business

Introduction

Welcome to Suite University. Anyone can start their own small business. You just need to decide four things:

1. What do you enjoy doing;
2. What do you do well;
3. Who will buy from you;
4. What are your goals for the business.

Once you know what your business is going to offer and where you're going with it, you can concentrate on the details, such as whether to incorporate, what name to choose, a logo, business cards, letterhead, financing etc.

This course leads you through a process which makes it easy to identify your marketable skills and the people who are going to pay for them. It then details the options for registering or incorporating your business or forming a partnership and adds some information on non-profit status. Finally it gives you advice on names and logos, guidelines on business cards, letterheads and websites and some hints on arranging financing before you start your business.

After taking the course, you can use the message board at the Suite101 Business and Economics Community to continue to get the support you need from the course developer and from other course participants.

To begin, you have to put down as many things as possible in each of the four categories listed above. You're looking for the one thing which you enjoy doing, which you do well, which people will buy from you and which will satisfy one of the sets of goals you've identified. Most of us have many valuable things we could do - the key is to identify those things we actually enjoy doing and to find the people to whom those things have value.

In this course you will learn to find those skills and how to find the people who are going to pay for them. Then you will have to decide which of those skills you will offer in your business and set realistic goals.

While you have to start by deciding what you're going to offer in your business, you also have to get down to the details of setting it up. The course will take you through the advantages and disadvantages of the different types of business structure, what you should do before you even register or incorporate and what to watch out for when choosing a name.

If you've got a job you'll find out how best to structure your leaving and when. If you've lost your job, you'll learn what to watch out for when you start your new business and how to turn losing your job into an advantage. If you're at home, this course will show you how to start slowly, with no investment and build according to the time you can put in while balancing your other responsibilities.

Anyone can start their own business but, in this course, you'll find out how to start your own business so it looks professional and does what you want. What you will get out of starting your own business this way is lots of hard work, most of which you will enjoy, and the thrill of building something of value which is all yours.

Lessons

Click here to see course syllabus