• It is a physical store? Have you monitored the location for long enough to know it's right for your audience and budget? 
• Is it a B2B business that requires you to build a portfolio of customers from LinkedIn? How will you ensure that you can reach the right people and engage them.
• Is it product that you want to sell on Etsy? Have you followed others to see how they've done it? Is there a course you can take or social media page that can ensure you're setting it up and promoting yourself in the right places.
• Is it a Shopify store that you want to stock other peoples products on? How will you drive traffic there? How will you build your inventory and streamline your range to ensure you can retain customers? The Dropshipping models only work when you have a way to drive customers to your site.
• Is it an innovative product (like mine) where you know its needed but now need to find people and convince them to buy. Where will you store these products and how will you showcase them away from the website to encourage people to come and buy.

Don't rely on friends and family to tell you your idea is great.

You need to test the market, that means real people.

Do your research, see how many people there are in your target audience and make sure there is a product market fit.

If your target audience isn't large enough to ensure your product will generate the revenue needed to keep your business thriving, then it will be come a hobby or side hustle. If you're okay with this then that's great and if you're able to manage a job that pays the bills alongside doing what you love then thats awesome!

But to make a business successful you need to know you will have the time to keep up with the consistency and maintain steady growth opportunities that will land you at that end goal you wrote out earlier. 

If you have a large target audience but they don't have the disposable income needed to buy what you're selling then you'll have to re-think your offering as you could end up putting time and expense into a product that can't be used.

It doesn't need to be any fancy but the more you know about your chosen method/platform (TikTok, Facebook Ads, Google Trends, Press and PR etc) and have access to, the easier and quicker it will be to reach your customers and gain traction. 

If you're planning on using social media, it's a great tool for free exposure but you need to have a clear idea of how you will engage followers.

What can kick you off on socials is if you already have an engaged following that consists of the people who would buy what you're selling.

For example, I learnt how to use Instagram when I started my page @notjustasinglemother Initially it was my way to make sense of the feelings and struggles I was facing. I felt like I was the only one in that situation but the more I posted the bigger my following got and I realised I wasn't alone. It wasn't huge by any means but when the time came for me to start Kiddiwhizz I had a wonderful group of supporters who cheered me on and even had a say in decisions like my packaging designs, as I was able to share what I was working on and get their opinions. They saw how hard I was working and became invested in my story before the product was even launched. I've learnt lots along the way but heres some tips:

• Don't cut corners by buying followers or joining quick fix programmes that are sold to you with the promise of making your business an overnight success. There's no short-cuts, it will only waste valuable time and resources and can potentially go against you when it comes to trying to outsmart an algorithm.
• Be consistent and think outside of the box. Engaging content that makes people want to follow and support you will be far more powerful and long term. Build trust and stick to your content pillars. For example, don't go off topic because of a trending reel or something that you think is interesting. Find a schedule that you can stick to instead of posting for the sake of it.
• Don't bombard users with sales driven content, people buy from people so make sure you and your story are at the heart of what you do.
• Build a network and follow other businesses for ideas and inspiration but don't copy. Be yourself and stick with it.
• Be prepared to feel like you're not getting anywhere and no one is seeing your content. It can be soul destroying most of the time but it can all change in the blink of an eye or a viral piece of content.
• Stick to one or two platforms (e.g. TikTok and Instagram or LinkedIn and Facebook) by spreading yourself too thinly you wont be consistent and will become overwhelmed and not run any of them effectively. If you feel more confident on one then start there but figure out which platform your ideal customers hang out on. For example if your focus is B2B then TikTok might not be right and you need to focus on reaching out to people in LinkedIn. For every 1000 cold DMs on LinkedIn you may only get a few warm leads but by learning what works and adapting the tone or approach you can perfect your pitch.
• Utilise your talent or skill, if you're really knowledgable about a topic that relates to your business then weave it into the content to build up credibility. 
• Be aware of brand reps and influencers who come to you for free products just because they look like they have a big following and lots of likes and comments on posts it's more often than not, fake! They are in closed groups where they like and comment on each others posts and use follow loops to get their follower numbers up. However when they post about your product you might get some engagement but it won't result in sales because the majority of people seeing it will be other 'brand reps' who only want freebies and won't buy your product.