Eight Steps to Successfully Setting Up Your Business 

Achieving long-term success with your startup is easier when you follow the right set of steps. Make sure to reference the following information when setting up your company:

1. Define the business objectives with timescales
   These are your personal interests or objectives for starting a business. These may include money, timescales and business or personal ambitions. It is essential to write these own, then create a plan to achieve these objectives. This should be a working document which can be updated as targets are achieved or missed. These early Business Objectives to be included in the Business Plan for review by an experienced business person or persons, or mentors.
2. Confirm the products or services, with prices and costs Sounds obvious but too many people do not spend enough time with these details. Essential to know exactly the profit from every product or service sale and record this along with all business costs. And this information to be recorded along with a cash flow forecast. This is the heartbeat of the business and without this information being recorded on a regular basis, and acted upon, the business will probably not survive or grow.
3. Choose Your Legal Structure, Business Name, Bank Account 
   Before you can go anywhere with your business, it is advisable to decide on your legal structure. Most UK entrepreneurs choose between being a sole trader or registering as a limited company. Take advice on the issues connected with both. Please note, you can start trading as a sole trader, and change to trading as a Limited Company.

   You can verify the chosen business name by running a quick Google search and look on Companies House to ensure the name is not already used. When you decide to go ahead with a company name, you will want to purchase the domain associated with your name, confirm email addresses, as well as register it with all relevant social media channels. Good idea to discuss potential business names with experienced associates.

   Even if you’re a sole trader, you’ll want to set up a separate bank account for your business. It’s never a good idea to mix personal and business funds—and it’s absolutely out of the question if your business is a limited company. For this reason, get a bank account set up in your business’s name. 

4. Identify your target market
   As important as confirming the products or services, is to identify the target market or customers. And be very specific about this. What is the need or the interest that your products or services are addressing?  What is the profile of the potential customers, age, gender, location, (local or remote?), online of offline.

   Then to decide how to get your sales messages to these prospects?

5. Confirm funding required
   Very few businesses can start without some funding. And one of the challenges for new businesses is to know what level of funding is required, then to identify the source of the funding.

   Also it is necessary to identify what the funding is used for as this will determine the potential sources of funds.  It may also be necessary to consider maybe two sources of funds.  Firstly, to set up the business, maybe create a prototype, buy some test stock to test the business potential. Then second phase funding to grow the business. There are many potential sources of funds, and it is advisable to talk to a business set up specialist in the first instance, rather than a funding company or a bank.  If as a startup you go down the funding route, you can spend many hours preparing business plans to support applications, and discover that your application was not within the remit of the potential funding company.

6. Create a Business Plan
   Finally, you’ll want to make sure you have a comprehensive business plan that details your company summary, logistics, projected finances, marketing and sales values, profit margins and more. This plan is essential to your success over both the short and the long term, as it will help provide a reference by which you can steer your company toward growth.
   
   
7. Put the operational elements of the business plan in place
   This includes everything from prospecting and looking for customers, creating proposals, (or how orders are taken if the business is online), booking and processing sales and invoicing, banking, bookkeeping and accounting, services or product delivery, insurance, HR and payroll, premises, phones, IT and liaising with Marketing and the web site developers.  To a new business person, this list seems daunting, but engaging an experienced business person to assist, will take most of the weight off your shoulders.
    
8. Launch the Business
   Get started. Once the main elements of the business are in place, start to trade. You will learn as you go along. Actually setting up the business with advice, you can undertake all the operational and marketing activities yourself. But this will detract you from the key activities of marketing and getting sales. If there are a number of you setting up the business, responsibilities can be divided.