Hey Brandon!
Awesome goal setting...and kudos for setting the intention and putting it out there to fellow PJ's. A couple resources I can suggest are: 1) Businss Plan Pro software: http://www.paloalto.com/ps/bp/ it's an inexpensive software that walks you through the process of business planning, and if you want to do a free, manual plan, SCORE has a good template (general) that you can use - check out their business planning toolkit: http://www.score.org/business_toolbox.html
I'll share more as I think of it.
Want to share what your concepts are at a high level? This could be a great focus group for you to get feedback.
Best,
Brenda

Thanks a lot for your help Brenda! I appreciate everything! I am in the process of doing some market research. Any suggestions on how/where to do this? And what kind of approach I should be looking at?

Brandon

Hey Brandon,
I checked out your profile page and it looks like you'll be starting a a web, marketing and communications company. I'm assuming you're going after the B2B market (business to business)? Do you have a specific segment you're going after? For example, mid size companies within the health care industry? What are you thinking in terms of niche? Or is that what you want to do market research for? To determine a niche? Once you can tell me this I can be more helpful as there are different stages/resources for market research depending on your goals. I can give some very good advice that I got when starting my biz: Niche & Be Rich. The more you can focus and carve out a specialty the better off you are and more clients who will find you.
Look forward to hearing your feedback so me and other PJ's can be helpful.
Brenda

Brenda, thanks for your post. My two business partners and I have come from another company, and have been working together for well over three years. We have previously focused a lot on the construction sector, and have done very well. We would like to maybe start small though, and simply focus on the B2B for now. It's tough, because right now, we just want to take what we can get...

Having run a web development company I can tell you that focusing on a niche was key. We were focused on DC-based recession proof industries (law firms, government, and large non-profits). It's how we survived the bubble burst. I should also tell you that being in a professional services company it's very, very hard to ever feel from the business.

In order to feel like you can step away from it, you ultimately may need to create products (virtual or otherwise). To see how a design company has done this, the shining example is 37 signals. Or you will need to create a rock solid business process that can either be scaled or sold. For more information on how to do this, I highly recommend "The E-myth Revisited."

Thanks Richman! I really appreciate the advice about a market focus.

Also, the scalability is definitely an asset. We will be focusing a lot on hosting, and developing a custom Content Management system that our clients can use (on top of other add-ons that I have developed in the past). This will give all our clients the ability to add "widget" style items to their site, giving them not only a great website, but added functionality and personalization.

Our company will also be doing a lot of print, branding, and design work, so we cover the bases from start to finish for a company. Being the programmer in the bunch though, I definitely see the need for a "product" that can bring in constant revenue, and position us for future business as well.

Thanks again for all your help.

Brandon

Richman, since you are coming from a similar background to the business venture I will be starting, do you have any recommendations or advice for business development? As I mentioned, we had a potential partner that would have done this for us, but we found out, just in time that he was corrupt, and did not have the company's best interest in mind. So, for now, we are limited to the remaining three partners to do any business development.

I will pick up "The E-Myth Revisited" tonight and get right on reading that.

Thanks again.
Brandon

Hey Brandon,
I'm so glad to hear that you guys are planning to niche within the construction industry - as I can see your work become very well known and you get referrals from others as oppossed to always having to direct market, etc. Robert has some awesome suggestions and so glad he has that specific experience with starting a web dev co. I totally understand as well that you feel like you want to take what you can get - and some traditional business types may say this is wrong (but I'm far from traditional) and I would say starting out to get experience under your belt and to figure out your processes while you're further carving your niche, work with clients who will give you business, just don't get lost there and start changing your niche based on a few bites b/c you could lose your passion for it quickly.

Sounds like you've got a great start and the market research you'll be doing will be for both market demand and competitive landscape? Have you started any of this and what have you found? What sources are you using or is that where you need some help?

Brenda

Thanks Brenda. Yes, I think we will have a definite advantage in our niche market, but I don't know where to start with the market research for something like this, and this is where I definitely need some guidance if you have any ideas.

Hey Brandon,

Here are some general questions to ask within each category for research and then some resources where you can find the information/data.

Industry: what industry do you consider your company a part of? (Marketing services or Web Development for example)? Then, come up with a bunch of questions on what you want to know about the opportunity within the industry. For example, what other companies are serving this industry? What type of services do they offer? How many clients do they have? Who needs the services we offer? What is the market size for our niche, etc. What trade associations are serving the industry? What is the financial performance on these services in the past several years - growing, declining, etc.

Target Market: are you geographic specific? demographic profile of your clients, how many companies are within your geo area you've identified - pool of client potential, do you know how these clients buy (RFPs, relationships) - are they working with any of your competitors? use the census & fed gov info below to see if there are enough customers to justify niching within your are

Competition: who are the leaders within your industry, are they niched like you? what are their prices? how do they attract customers? what have been the causes for similar firms closing their doors (economy, saturated market, technology advances, etc.)

Partners/Suppliers; what kind of partners will you need to look at for your biz if any? any particular technology you need to purchase to get an edge? What will the investment be?

Then, once you have your list of

www.census.gov & http://www.census.gov/econ/census02/guide/INDSUMM.HTM (can get industry reports) & http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/ (state & country quick facts)
www.state.ca.us (for California)
www.hoovers.com
www.dnb.com
www.asaenet.org (trade associations)
www.tsnn.com (trade associations)
www.thomasnet.com (suppliers)
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/buzz/ (finding out trends)
www.nichebot.com (keyword searches all in one place)
http://www.google.com/trends

Then obviously for your competitive info as well as partners, you'd go to their direct websites and scour the trade associations to see who is joined as a part of them.

Helpful?

Brandon, my best tip for you would be to do things that stand out beyond the rest. One time a prospective client mentioned that he loved the McKinsey site more than any other. So rather than just talk about our proposal, I had our designers create a mock-up design that looked very similar to McKinsey’s. We used this as a talking point for our discussions and won the contract over a firm 10 times our size.

As a professional coach, I would be happy to talk to you more if you send me a private message. I would also highly recommend speaking directly with my topic partner Brenda. As you can see by this discussion, she has a wealth of knowledge and experience in starting businesses.