Hundreds of thousands of small businesses closed due to the pandemic. The health crisis also forced others to lay off many of their employees as sales went down after people stayed home to avoid getting infected.
Despite the discouraging situation around a year ago, things have changed after health authorities administered around 295 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine. People have even started traveling fueled by the confidence that the country is approaching herd immunity.
With this, you may even be interested in starting a business. The positive economic environment may allow your business to succeed before the pandemic ends. But before you finalize your decision, you should take into account the following tips to increase the chances of success for your business.
Table of Contents
Know the Reasons for Starting a Business
The first thing you need to consider is your reason why you want to start a business. Starting a business is not easy, and you should make sure you have the right reasons for starting the business. While making money is a major reason, a passion for a product and service can serve as a good motivator for anyone looking to start a business.
Another reason people want to start a business is to become a boss, especially after they were laid off when the pandemic started. You may also want to serve the community through the product or service you are offering. Identifying the reason for starting the business also allows you to set your objectives and the pain points of your customers in the market.
Fill a Market Demand
The pandemic resulted in changes in consumer habits as people focused on buying products online. When the pandemic started, there was an increase in the demand for cleaning products, fitness equipment, and home improvement services. In addition to these products and services, demand for pet supply products also increased as people started adopting pets to keep them company while working at home.
Taking the situation into account is a good way for you to look at the demand in the market. You can look to filling this demand with the product or service you are offering. But you should make sure the demand is sustainable and will not disappear after a short time. You can also check if you can source out enough products to fill the demand.
Make a Resilient Business Plan
The pandemic highlighted the importance of making a resilient business plan to allow you to weather any storm that may come. Your business plan should be able to adapt to different situations. You should also monitor your expenses to prevent overspending. You should also plan for any eventuality to ensure you cover as many situations as possible while running the business.
When you start your business, you can consider bootstrapping if you have no outside source of funds. In this situation, you’ll be using your funds to start the business. But there are several options for you to look into for your funding sources. You can consider getting a loan from a conventional bank. But the meeting the requirements can be challenging. Another option is going for a small business loan. This is an alternative to loans from traditional banks and is easy to get if you have a good credit history and a good cash flow.
Looking for a business partner is another option since it will allow you to share the expenses and exposure in the business. You can also consider partnering with your supplier so you’ll have a ready supply of the products you are offering in the market.
You can start small and gradually scale up as your business grows. The closure of many businesses due to the pandemic allows entrepreneurs to enter the market.
Use the Network
At this point, you may want to use your personal and professional networks to help your business. You should be creative and use social media platforms to reach out to your potential customers. You can see if anyone in your network is a potential customer. You may even find a potential partner or supplier in your network of contacts.
Leveraging your network also allows you to create focus groups based on the people you know. It is also an inexpensive or even free method of determining your market’s pain points and needs. You can also use online survey tools to get feedback from people who are not directly connected to you. You can also use your network to check if a product you want to introduce has a market.
Starting a business during the pandemic is challenging, but the current situation is better compared to the time when the health crisis first started.