10 Good tips for starting business in India

(1) Ask yourself what values you are bringing in the business?

                To become successful business company in India or anywhere in the world, you have to find what value you are bringing in to business. Are you feeling the gap between end users and manufacturers? Are you offering something that no one else is offering in the target market? Is your product or service unique? If your product or service is not unique then be prepare for competition and hard work. You have to have good marketing strategy that will make the competitor sweat.

 (2) Do market research and find the opportunity.

                So you think that you have good product or service to offer. But how good is it exactly? It’s always good to do some market research for the size of market, price, quality, delivery time etc. You can opt for professional market research companies. But what if you don’t have enough money - the common problem with the startups? Just ask your friends and colleagues. What they think of your idea? Keep your mind open for any improvements.

(3) Draw the business plan.

                The outcomes of the first two stages are positive and you think you can do it. Well now is the time to do some serious work. We have everything clear in mind how to make this product and sell it to the clients; then why not put it in to a paper (or shall I say computer!!!). Work out the time frame, marketing strategy, finances, expected revenues or anything else that you feel needs to be planned. This will also help you if you are opting for business loan.

(4) Decide which type of company you want to form.

                This is one of the processes where the government laws come in picture. There are mainly three types of company that you can form in India.

(a)    Proprietorship (cheaper and Fast)

(b)   Partnership (good if you want to share resources and grow rapidly)

(c)    Limited liability Company (public and private)

Take some advice from any business owner whom you can trust. You can go to the professional guys like chartered accountants and company secretaries. But be aware that they are there to do business; don’t expect them to give you honest advice.

It’s always better to go for partnership firm if you are below 30.

(5) Legal issues and licensing.

                Make sure that you know the government laws and licensing procedure for the product/service you are selling. It takes fair amount of time to get through this. You have to plan this very well and well ahead of other things for your company. Thanks to the E-governance and changing work culture in government organizations, things are moving fast then it used to be.

 Do some research and hire the professional to do this for you. Again everyone is there for a reason. So please meet two or three experts and drill down the details and get the clear idea of how they will complete the task. Make sure there are no hidden charges.

(6) Marketing plan.

                Single most important factor in today’s competitive world is marketing. Work out how much revenue you want to generate in a month. Go down in to more details and ask yourself to achieve your monthly target how many resources you want to spend.

There are number of ways you can market your company through yellow pages, telephone help line firms, internet, radio, newspaper, magazines and leaflets. If you are in service sector or you want to get business from foreign countries as well then make your website and do the search engine optimization.

If your site comes up in first 10 results in major search engines like goggle and yahoo then your company will grow like no one else.

(7) Documentation.

If you are going for partnership which I recommend for young entrepreneurs, make sure you put the agreement in official document. Make sure everything is clear right from investment to the profit and loss sharing. Partnership also shares your risk & efforts and also it will bring in more professional network which is vital for the startups.

(8) Always good to have technical know how.

                What ever business you are in, make sure your company has technical expertise in relevant field. How worth it would be if your marketing team get you the business but you simply can not do it. Soon the motivation for the marketing will dry up. Marketing is good to get new customers and technical expertise is proven tool to keep the customer satisfied and bond with you in long teams.

(9) Organizing and planning everything.

                Something that we never been taught of until we do professional work. Emails, meetings, conferences, follow-up calls, contacts all sort of daily work – Plan it. Organize it properly with the latest technology like Google applications and other personal information manager software available for free. Make planning and organizing as your work culture and make everyone follow this. This single thing prevents so many reworks and save good amount of time we spent on just searching things.

(10) The Golden Rule- Never Give UP.