1 – ‘Network’ with other web-business owners whose websites you like the look and feel of, and get the contact information for the companies that created those sites – normally a development or webmaster team.  Ask the site owners if they were satisfied with all aspects of the work and service, ask if they wold recommend them, and what they paid to have their site built.  Make comparisons between the size and functionality of their site compared to your idea and then work out how much yours could likely cost in a comparison.

2 – Look around the web and make a list of websites that you find attractive.  Make notes of layouts, colours and flash-based applications.  Be sure to copy the complete url for each site you like so you can easily refer back to it and send to the development team to show them what you mean.  Along with that list, make note of exactly what it is about the sites you like.  from what I found, developers can do anything you want, but it’s better to show something than to describe it yourself: after all, a picture tells a thousand words.  You might find one that has a color scheme you like, another that is easy to navigate.  

3 – Normally, the bottom of the page in question will have a link to the design/development team who created it.  If so, contact the companies whose work you like and ask them for a quote – mentioning you love the look of one of their sites.

4 – List all the keywords and phrases for your business.  This will be used for the meta information when the developer and designers work on your website and it’s a good idea to also have different titles for each page as well (this is used for the search engines and means better seo for your site).  If you buy search engine advertising, use the tools provided by the search engines to help you discover important keywords.

5 – Decide whether you’ll sell directly on the website, or just use the website to get leads.  This needs to be decided early no as changing half-way through a project will delay things considerably and more than likely add cost.

6 – Decide on and prepare all the editorial information and marketing copy your website will contain.   Basically, write all the content and text your site will have so when the design team are ready, you can simply forward it on instead of starting to do it at that moment.  At minimum, you’ll want a homepage (the main page for your site), a page or pages describing your products and services, an “about us” page and a “contact us” page. 

7 – Write or have a professional writer create the editorial content as soon as you decide what you want on the site.  The purpose of your website is to represent and market your business, and bear in mind web developers usually just design and program sites – they are not salespeople and (especially) if you’re using an off-shore development team like me, english may not be their first language.   Remember, the web developer can’t finish the job until you give them the copy that goes on the website, so save yourself time and do it in advance.

8 - Don’t cut corners by simply forwarding a brochure or flyer for your business to add text onto your site.  A websites aim is very different from a flyer.  A website’s job is to get attention AND get the prospect to take action. In other words, to sell.  The flyer will just be generating interest.

9 – Decide which photos, graphics and drawings you want on your site, and make it clear whether you’ll provide the graphics or whether the web developer will need to do it.  Nowadays, there are some great sites to buy royalty-free photo’s, images and videos at a small cost – but means you won’t infringe copyright.  Main player in this field is iStockphoto, which I have used countless times and is dead easy to use.  Graphics you may need to provide yourself would include photos of products, people and other graphics for use on your site.  Most stock photo sites have buttons users can click on, and all are almost always customisable as well.

10 – If your website is ’selling’ or at least taking payments for your products or services, be aware that you will need to get a ‘merchant account’ that can be used on the web to handle taking payments from users.  PayPal is probably the best one to use and handles any card that the customer may have.   You will be charged for using such a service, but I found Paypal has some of the lowest charges with the highest flexibility.   Paypal also have a great way of integrating their payment system directly into your site, so users won’t have to leave your site to make their purchase. 

11 - Ensure you sign a contract with the developer that highlights all the features and details you have discussed with the developer.  Leave nothing out.  This should include a breakdown of the price and milestones.  Milestones are key parts of the project that you can check you’r happy with and move on to the next (also known as ‘deliverables’.  I do this with my own web design clients, and expect nothing less when I’m the ‘customer’.  By setting milestones, you can check whether the overall project is on time for completion deadline.   Google ‘web development contract templates‘, and find one suitable to your requirements.

12 - Make sure you stipulate that you have full copyright ownership of your site.  This is important in the case you decide to change web developers or hosting companies at any time in the future, you will be able to do so without having to have your site recreated.  The copyright ownership must be written into the contract.  Otherwise, under copyright law, the developer may own the work they created for you.   ‘Source code’ is different, as if the development team are writing components or code from scratch they usually have the right keep that component in it’s basic form, but any content, trademarks, logos, text and features that are specific for your site – remain yours.

Make sure that you keep on top of the development team throughout the project and answer any queries they have promptly.  Remember, if they need to know something important, they may not be able to proceed any further without that bit of info.   Follow all the above steps and your website will turn out exactly as you want it, and more importantly, when you want it completed.

Obviously there are so many different types of business to get going with – but for the purposes of this post, let’s divide this simply into 2 sections: an online business and an offline business.

Offline Business

This is the normal route most people would consider firstly when they think “I’ll start my own company”.  Maybe that means starting a retail shop, maybe a call centre, or maybe a trade service like an electrician, engineer etc.  Either way, you will have plenty of overheads whether that be from renting office space, shop space, or buying stock or equipment, hiring staff (if required) and stationary.

If you deal B2C (business to customer), your hours will be sporadic, maybe daytime hours, maybe evenings and weekends.  If you work B2B (Business to business) then you’ll typically work 9-5 monday to friday.

Online business

An online presence for business is a very powerful marketing and communication tool.  It is also an incredible source of cost-efficiency, an environmentally friendly way to work and a sign of professionalism which is pretty much a requirement today.  Powerful, fast and efficient make this a marketing and communication tool medium.  Here are a few reasons why I (and you) should consider an online business:

• Minimal startup time & investment. Search engine optimized websites pay themselves off very quickly as long as they provide customers with valuable products or services
• The most environmentally friendly way to run a business. Telecommuting reduces the number of cars and car miles. You can test your sales strategies and offerings without wasting precious paper and other valuable resources. Put your invoices, newsletters and catalogues online and save numerous little green trees.  Plus, you can run your business in your pyjamas if you want.  Who doesn’t want to work everyday in the pj’s?
• Very inexpensive – A great way to reach new markets and interact with them on numerous platforms.
• Office & transportation cost savings – no office space, no staff and no stocktaking.  Your bedroom is your office.
• Unlimited possibilities for automation of your business – You can automate your orders and payment processes, inventory management, your customer support tasks and more.  Lazy? Love spending time with friends and family?  This is a HUGE plus (one for me was not having to commute anymore in gridlocked traffic)
• Freedom to live and work where you like – You can be travelling while running your online business and run multiple businesses simultaneously!  Take your laptop on holiday and run your business on the beach if you want.  Sweet.
• Global presence 24/7.  Your business is making you money while you sleep.
• A sign of professionalism – AND the fact that you can appear as a huge multi-national company – even though it’s just you.

There are so many benefits of an online business compared to a normal business blueprit.  For freedom, ease of use and low costs and overheads, make an online business plan to seriously think about.

As my intention for this blog is to archive lots of information that future entrepreneurs will find useful, the main purpose of writing this is to share with you every step of a journey to becoming a successful entrepreneur.

I’m currently in the midst of setting up various little companies (all run by just me), and beginning to formulate a small group of foundations that will hopefully, set me in the right direction of becoming a successful business owner.

On a daily basis, I will be working on these projects, either crawling the net for resources or articles I can use and learning the steps from the highest businessmen that exist today – basically anything that will help me and my future profits.

So where am I up to when I start this?

Well, it’s Wednseday the 15th of April 2009.  It’s 9.18am and I’m currently sat at my desk at work, NTL Telewest business.  I’m wailing in the face of redundancy and from an email memo that’s circulating here this morning, officially redundant on the 22nd. Very soon.

Redundancy seems to make people change.  I have seen evidence of people who have become apathetic and unfriendly in light of the situation.  People stop caring.  Managers stop managing and it really is a sad state of affairs.

I quite like it.

Redundancy for me, has been quite possibly the best thing that’s probably ever happened to me (apart from getting married) in my life, and potentially… that probably ever will.

It was during the beginning of the ‘big black’, that I came across an article on inc.com, a popular entrepreneur magazine, that I had an idea.  The idea was to start an online business that could be very popular and could earn a life-changing amount of money.  I was intrigued.

I began researching the market, making sure that such a website could exist today, and began contemplating the notion of actually starting a business, hey, I even had the money coming in from the redundancy settlement to pay for it.

I have no programming skills, my special skills are in thought and concept (maybe a little graphics/design), but not programming (I thought PHP was a drug?), MySQL (My-what?) and CSS.

So I did the best I could, learnt dreamweaver, built a few experimental sites from basic templates (E.g, ww.evo-power.net), and tested aspects such as Adsense, custom html and flash on the sites.  Learnt Google and it’s analytics and affiliate marketing – everything for getting started.  I practiced much into each night, until my foggy eyes could take no more, and I attempted to do a crash course in web development, web design and graphics – merely to get a good idea as to the basic understanding of the web, how it is made and how to make money from it.

I am still in no way an expert (took me 2 days to set this wordpress blog up!), but neverthless, more confident at what I’m doing 4 month on.

Anyway, I digress.  So I’m working at my day job still, and blogging/working on my projects in the evenings.  I work hard at present (4.5 hours sleep most nights), but it’s doing what I love, so it doesn’t feel straining at all – I know the value of a good work/life balance.

Now I’m not trying to say I don’t trust you, but for my own reasons, I cannot tell you the name or industry of my unlaunched online business (I’m waiting on the trademark and other protections), but I will tell you of the steps I’ve taken to get to where in the project life we are presently.  So for the purposes of this site (until my site is launched), I’ll call it Project X.

From doing all my research, contacted industry experts and looked at the other closest ‘competition’ (thoroughly!), I found a company who could build my site.  They are one of the best high-end designers and dynamic developers I have ever mseen, with a superb portfolio and a very professional and thorough approach, I don’t mind paying a little more for the right company.  I’m dealing directly with the CEO and we email and Skype almost daily with any small adjustments to features or requirements I have and how we can develop them.  We are certain we can produce a website that has the capability and design of a very successful business, glorifyingly beautiful to look at but ultimately simple to use for the user.

I have a name, I know the hosting company I’m going to use for the dedicated hosting and the overall style or theme of Project X – down to the colour range.  I have thought and documented everything.  Starting a business has certainly made me see just how much there is to consider – it’s no small feat.

All the sites features have been at their birth, an idea.  The whole site was just an idea initially.  It soon snowballed the more and more I thought it through or talked it over with family and friends for idea bouncing sessions.  I’m quite creative anyway, so had a few ‘brainwaves’ which have now given me the edge of any competition and makes my site unique, offering features to this market which no other site does. But talk things through, and listen to what people say to you, ask questions and get a feel for a target audience.   Know your customer.

I have learnt on the net how to write a business plan – very important – from various sources online.  After all as the saying goes; “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”.   This is so true.   See my seperate blog for how to write an efficient business plan for more information, but it’s pretty simple and straightforward and is a good excerise to replay everything in your head and highlight anything you may have missed out or overlooked.

Once I had this idea for a business and began putting into action, I then began playing around with Adobe Flash CS4 and building a simple flash site for me as a company.  I couldn’t just be Phil Owen, I needed a name for my company, so chose OwenDevelopments and set up  www.Owen-Developments.info.

This was really only for myself (in fact, I didn’t even submit it to any search engines apart from Google).  Again, it’s all Flash, FTP and Adsense practice to me.  It’s good to update things on that site too whenever I make progress with Project X.  I get the realization then, that things are moving forwards and it’s rather exciting.

So now I have my project I’m working hard on, see my categories for where I’m up to, what I’ve learnt, what I’ve found useful and any comments are always welcome.  If you’re stuck at the beginning and need advice, let me know and I’ll try to explain what I did.

Thousands of people set up their own businesses every year. Some do it because they want to work for themselves, others because they have a great idea and have spotted a gap in the market. And of course there are those (like me) that think they can make lots of money… and they can.

These are all valid reasons for starting a business. Commitment and motivation are vital and whatever it is that drives you to make it a success good.

Although enthusiasm is important, good planning is a must. Without a good business plan you could struggle to make a go of it.

There are many issues to think about:

- What will the business do?
- Where can it operate?
- Will I need to hire/buy a premises?
- Do I need people to make it happen, or will
- I be flying solo for some time?
- Can I fund the business myself, or do I need financial support?
- How long will it take to get the business into profit?
- Have I got what it takes to make it work?

There is no right or wrong type of person to run a business. If you are determined to make it succeed, and are prepared to work long hours, then you have the ingredients for success.

If you look at top business people, the one thing they have in common is determination.  They do not give up at the first hurdle and they keep going until they succeed.

Obstacles and setbacks

There will be many of these but how you overcome them will be critical to deciding whether or not you will ultimately succeed. If you are not the sort of person who responds well to setbacks, you ought to ask yourself whether you are the right person to be trying to get a business off the ground.

Finances

You need good advisers – usually an accountant and a lawyer – when you are handling complex issues such as finances, tax and business law.   All businesses require a certain amount of administration and you will have to spend time going through paperwork.  If you tend to bury your head in the sand and ignore detail, you need a good right-hand person who will concentrate on the detail.  Not all great business leaders were good at the small print, but all good business people have someone close to them who is. I suggest finding someone who can make sure that you are made fully aware of this.