You Want To Quit Your Job To Start Your Own Business?

When you start your own business, it is just you and your ideas. Then you add customers and they shape you and that ideas - you find yourself in a co-evolution.

And it is on you to achieve a fit without freezing it.

In What I have Done Wrong I have pointed out that there are traps and how I tried to avoid them

But there are steps before and I try to point them out for innovation businesses:

Ask a few principle questions

In what business do you want to be in?
What technology, products, behavior, services ("product") will you be able to provide?
Who is your dream client?
Who will be your strongest competitor?
What differential advantages does your business provide for this client against this competitor?
Who is your dream partner?
Is your financing right?

Describe a few things in a compass

Purpose
Targets and milestones
Brand promise
Core values

Outline a marketing strategy

Analyze and segment your markets
Select the segment where you can become leader because of your differential advantage in the competitive arena - describe as CATWOE

Clients
Actors (User)
Transformations (like knowledge into margins)
World View (your business principle)
Owner (you?)
Environment (who influences your business)

 Describe a rough marketing and promotion mix

Final questions before selling

Do you have identified the segment for leadership?
Are there known product deficiencies?
Are the prices right?
Is the timing right?
Do you know your position in the competitive arena well enough?
Do you have the right marketing resources?
Do you have stories for the right channels?
Are you prepared for insight sales?
Is your sales force fit?

Time to think about success factors?

Let me speak with the 14 keys of success Steve Jobs recommended and how I see them through the lens of UnRisk: Lessons of Steve Jobs

Passion

Don't believe in those who suggest you need to work your ass of - you need passion, to do things that matter for those who care.

Look into the numbers

Be patient, but look whether you can create enough cash flow to pay the costs of your business, the bills and food. It may be in a bootstrap arrangement, but you need to know the finical impact of your decisions. Don'r forget: you gave up a salary and you have to pay yourself.

Get help?

Coming from where you are to where you want to be?