Plan your business start-up
Good planning and a strong focus on your market will help you successfully develop your idea into a future business.
Ask questions and clarify as you go
Why do you want to pursue this idea, and what drives you to embark on the entrepreneurial journey?
To answer this, a personal reflection on yourself and your position can be useful while you continue to develop your idea.
There are many important things you should clarify about the idea before starting up. You need to decide which markets and customer groups you want to sell to, and how you plan to do it.
Listen to the market
The big question before you make a start is of course whether your business will be a success and whether it will generate a profit in the long-term. No one can answer these questions with any certainty, but if you are market-oriented, you can obtain some indication by:
- asking future customers what they think of what you are offering,
- asking suppliers what they think,
- keeping an eye on businesses which are already established in the sector,
- analysing the market,
- mapping out your competitors,
- estimating the size of your customer base.
Search for Business Information
You don’t need to spend money hiring others to do market research. There is plenty of information available through the Brønnøysund Register Centre’s free service “Virksomhetsopplysninger”. Here you can find updated details about registered businesses in a specific market area and customize the type of information you want to download.
Vision and business concept
It can be useful to spend some time during the planning phase formulating a vision and business concept for your start-up.
A vision is a desired future position which you and your business want to achieve in the long term and will act as a guide for the future business.
What is a Vision?
A vision is a picture of the future — a dream image of what you and your business aim to achieve in the long term. It serves as a guiding star for the company’s future direction.
What is a business idea?
An idea becomes a business concept when it can meet a need in the market and provide a competitive edge which can be maintained over time. A business concept describes what you want to sell and to whom and how the customers will buy from you.
Example of a vision and business concept:
IKEA's vision is "To create a better everyday life for the many people".
IKEA's business concept is to support this vision "by offering a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them".
Involve others in the planning process
You can benefit from discussing your idea with others. It may provide you with good suggestions for progressing with the planning of your own business. A good tip is to build a network of resource people around you who can help you in areas where you need it. Good resource people may be people you know or other businesspeople who have experience in managing a business. It may be the municipal authority's business development manager, your bank, an accounting firm, an auditor or a solicitor if you need help drawing up agreements.
Draw up good plans
If you are planning to work with a business partner or applying for financing from a bank, they will want you to demonstrate that you have established realistic plans and budgets before they consider working with you.
All relevant information concerning how you intend to realise your business concept should be summarised in your business model. The next step in the planning phase will be to prepare start-up budgets and, if appropriate, draw up a business plan.
