Just in case you haven’t seen it plastered all over the runways, in your children’s favorites shows or gathered amongst the ongoing plight for women’s sexual agency, the future is now more than ever before female. Female businesses are on the rise too, according to a report from the Institute of Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), women are making never before seen gains in the small-business arena, accounting for about 29 percent of America’s business owners.
About 8.9 million people annually come to their own terms and conclusions before they take the leap into starting something of their own. Whether those terms start with the need for flexibility in their career paths or maybe it’s something that’s been on the back burner their whole lives, or maybe they left distant homes and cultures with the latent idea of the American dream. Starting a business isn’t an easy endeavor. Starting one with little to no money may sound even harder but, can be realized with a few tips.
1. First draw out an idea for a business. The cost effective ones tend to be those that you create in your spare time that cost little to no money.
2. Make sure your business serves a purpose, answers a crisis, or provides a niche. Businesses tend to do better when the idea around it is unique and authentic.
3. Hold your horses! Don’t quite hand in that resignation letter yet, holding on to your day job ensures that you’re able to take the necessary risks associated with this new venture.
4. Now, that you have this unique idea down, it’s time to analyze your market! Compare what you want to bring to the table against what your competitors already offer. You can do this through focus groups, research, and even trial and error. Make sure its especially special and package it in a way that meets market needs.
5. You have a business idea, great! Its time to plan and execute. A simple one-page business plan should suffice for the first year of a business. A plan in writing, whether that’s eschewed between bad attempts of poetry in your notes or scribbled across a restaurant receipt–better than nothing at all.
6. The idea is foolproof, it’s now time to start financing the business. This can be done in a multitude of ways in 2018, whether through crowd funding sites such as Kickstarter, Gofundme, or Indiegogo they’re a plenty on the internet. Other options include small business loans, small business grants, angel investors, or boot-strapping.
7. Picking a name and putting yourself out there are key and yes, that seems obvious but these simple necessities are precisely the reason 8 out of 10 small businesses fail. Social media and marketing are critical to the success of a small business because we live in an era where your more likely to look to Facebook recommendations than your local phone book for anything!
Her Story
Here to help us along in our entrepreneurial journey is shero and small business owner, La Tetra Metts-Owens. She is the founder of Aliwazas , a mind, body, and soul collaborative that provides crystals, consultations, waist beads, yoni eggs, and body care products to places near and far. Metts, advises budding female entrepreneurs against the idea of self reliance when it comes to forming and running a successful business. “I initially started Aliwazas with the intention of bringing women together, in a collective market sort of like Etsy but, this was met with criticism. Through careful self-evaluation, I learned that I wasn’t able to go after this concept alone and have been able to build a village around Aliwazas, like nothing I conceived before.” Metts, believes that listening to and learning from critique are paramount to evolving as an entrepreneur. “We allow for ourselves to remain teachable, while all the time being the educators, this a large part of what Aliwazas is.”
I defy what it means to be a female, in business by being lil’ ole me and not backing down from that.
There are just about a zillion different ways to make a dollar and just about as many excuses to keep you from going after it. Only, it takes tact, courage, and an evolving perceptive to be a successful entrepreneur. In whatever endeavor your entrepreneurial spirit takes form, be ready to shift and pivot for the long haul.
La Tetra encourages readers to follow her and Aliwazas’ journey on any of the social outlets below.
For more information about Aliwazas click the link below.
Read this article for more ideas on starting a business.
