Empowering Women Considering a Small Business with Information
Most online guides for starting a business ignore the very real, relatively recent increase in new businesses started by women. Simple information for women considering starting a new business is not as available on online women discussions as it should be. Yet empowering women to make these choices based on good information is fairly simple. This list seeks to offer suggestions about how to decide whether to start a business, while acknowledging important questions such as “what is there that a woman, particularly, should do if she wants to start her own small business?”
1) Be absolutely as sure as possible that you have something worth selling – a better, less expensive, innovative, or niche-specific product or service. This is hard. If you can’t explain why you have this, go back to the drawing board.
2) Create a business plan. This is dry, obvious, and absolutely essential. In fact, the ability to prepare a good business plan is an incredibly sought-after skill and a well-presented business plan can make or break a start-up. However, this first draft won’t be your “marketing” version. This is the document that will help you solidify where you see your company situating itself within the industry, what start-up challenges you will face, and how much capital you will need to start. It is a good idea to spend some time figuring out what a business plan is and what it should do in more detail. Use this to refine yours before you move on.
3) Make a life plan. Many guides neglect this, but if you are a woman who left your previous job because of iniquities, odds are this is a good idea for you. In fact, even if you think the fact that you’re a woman should have absolutely no effect on your business or your professional goals, a life plan still makes sense. This is where you think about what you want your personal life to look like in the future. Pick regular intervals and think about what your priorities are and how you expect them to change, what you want from your current family, what they will need from you, and if you have any plans to grow that family. What sacrifices will you have to make for your business, and what benefits will result from it if successful? The point is to be prepared, not to discourage yourself.
Again, these steps don’t take you all the way to the end of the road where you have a working business, but rather aim to help by empowering women who are thinking about breaking out on their own to make the right decision.
