With all the talk of hustle culture online, It seems like everyone is an entrepreneur these days!
However, before jumping into starting a business with both feats, it’s very important to carefully consider the following factors. Read on to find out what they are.
Will you sell a product or a service?
Before you can start a business you need a product or service to sell. These two things are often conflated into the single term ‘product’ for ease of use. However, more accurately a product tends to be a physical or virtual item that a customer can purchase and then own. A service, on the other hand, is when you provide some type of assistance to your customer or client in exchange for money.
Is it an MVP?
Once you have decided on your product it’s time to explore whether it’s an MVP or a minimum-viable product. This means that there is a need for it, that it solves a problem that a customer has and that it can be monetised.
It’s crucial to build an MVP because products that do not fulfil these criteria are going to be very hard to market and sell. In turn, making it much less likely that a business based on such a product will succeed. Therefore if you want the best foundations to ensure business success, building a product that meets the MVP criteria is essential.
How will you package it?
Another important consideration is how you will package your product for sale. This is especially crucial for physical products that need to be transported from their place of manufacture to stores, and then to customers’ businesses or homes. Indeed, for such products, the packaging not only has to attract people to buy the item, and meet your business’s brand identity, but it also needs to protect and preserve the item or contents inside.
How / where will you sell it?
Before starting a business it also pays to think carefully about where and how you will sell your product. Where concerns whether you will sell it in real life or online. If the answer is real life, do you plan on having your store sell your products, sell them in other people’s stores, or make use of events like markets, farmers’ markets, fayres, and pop-up shops?
If you choose to sell your product online will you have an eCommerce website to do so, or will you partner with other sellers to retail and market your product?
How will you price it?
Last, of all, you must think very carefully about how you will price your product before you begin your business. Traditionally ‘per unit’ costs have been calculated by adding the cost of materials, time, and overheads, and doubling. However, prices should also include how much people are willing to pay for your product. To establish this, looking at similar products on the market and how much they are charging should give you a good idea of the price range you can consider.
