If you've ever thought about starting a company or launching a new venture, you're probably trying to figure out what to do. But before you start building, you'll need to get clear on exactly what you need to do. And that's where we come in.

Keep reading to find out our best tips and tricks for starting a successful startup, and a simple, step-by-step process for doing so.

What is a startup?

A startup is a company in the initial stages of business. Often, they are also single products or services founded by entrepreneurs who see a gap in their industry or unmet demand.

Because startups are in the first stages of their founding and operations, they often have high costs upfront with little revenue. Though you can get external funding (more on that later), these costs are often undertaken by the startups' founders. This can make startups seem daunting and risky, but there are many ways to counterbalance this and give your product a better chance at success.

The 7 most important steps to starting your own startup

Founding your startup is a process, but there are several crucial steps you need to make sure you hit along the way.

Validate your startup idea

First and foremost, you'll need to make sure your startup idea is viable and will in turn lead to a viable product.

The first step to this is doing market research. What other products already exist in your industry? Are there any gaps in demand or features? In order to make your product successful, you'll have to find a reason for it to stand out against your competitors.

Likewise, it's also a good idea to make sure that your industry has a good level of projected growth. Industries that are downsizing or decreasing in popularity are not great candidates for a new venture, and you don't want to sink your money into an idea that won't pan out. These two things together will help you find your product-market fit.

Once you've done this research yourself and have a basic understanding of your industry and competitors, you'll need to share your idea with others to get their opinions and feedback. Startup groups and communities such as dedicated Slack channels, accelerators or other business groups are great for this because you're getting real-life feedback that can help you. Other tools such as Statistica, Think With Google, KNIME and Pickfu are also helpful, but talking with others in your industry is invaluable.

Formulate a Business Plan

A business plan might be the most important document to have when you're starting your startup. They can help you grow faster, secure investors, reduce risk, and plan out your finances. Business plans are best when they're detailed, making them a great resource to look back to throughout your product journey.

This means your business plan will have several different sections. The first few include a product brief—a short summary of your product that can be used to reel in investors and users alike—and a description of your company, goals, and services. Research is also an important part of your business plan; you'll need to know what gaps your product aims to address in your industry, as well as who your biggest competitors are.

Your business plan should also include an outline of your marketing and sales plan to show shareholders that you have thought-out strategies for growing your user base. Lastly, you'll need to perform a financial analysis on your company as it currently stands, and work out projections for the future.

Read our full article on how to write a business plan for more.

Create your startup roadmap

Product roadmaps are features used by companies to provide a visual overview of all planned product updates, upcoming features and bug fixes. Often, these roadmaps are organized by progress or status—i.e. under planned, in progress and completed sections.

Roadmaps are a great way for startups to show they have a plan for the future and to keep their users up to date with their progress. And while some companies prefer to keep their roadmaps internal, having a public roadmap on your website can have many important benefits. For one, public roadmaps can help boost accountability within your product team by clearly outlining deadlines and responsibilities. In doing so, this can also help boost internal cohesion by keeping everyone on the same page. Lastly, roadmaps can boost transparency between your startup and potential customers, in turn making them feel more connected to your product.

Learn more about creating, prioritizing and publicizing your roadmaps today.

Put together your founding team

Now that you have all the necessary starting documents together, it's time to think about building your team. Startups take a village, and you can't do it alone; you'll need to find a good team to help you scale your product and help it grow. Furthermore, studies have found that startups with more than one founder see significant growth quicker without scaling prematurely, which can help lead to longer-term success.

The role of your cofounder is to fill any gaps in your company. Are you missing certain skills or industry knowledge? Would it be helpful to partner with someone with more leadership experience or experience in gaining funding? Your cofounder is meant to compliment you and your skills and vice versa.

Having a co-founder isn't always necessary, but it's important to put your ego aside and look inside yourself to see if bringing one on could help. And if the answer is yes, it's also important to make sure you've lined out all duties, responsibilities and financial expectations in a Founder's Agreement.

After you've found a cofounder (if you've chosen to do so), it's time to think about the other roles you need to fill. You'll need to find a good marketing team, development team and design team, among others. Some startup founders also choose to look for advisors to help guide them on their way.

Focus on the key things you highlighted in your business plan and look for team members accordingly. 

Network

So you've got your business plan and founding team together. Now it's time to get out there and network.

Networking can be useful for several reasons. For one, it's a great way to market your product in its initial stages. This creates familiarity with your product early on, which can help you grow faster once your product is released. It's also a great way to refine your idea and get input from those with more experience in the industry, giving you more of an edge and likely a smoother initial release, too. 

Finally, networking can also be a great way to help fill out your founding team. Other people in the industry can help you connect to good developers, product managers and marketers that can really help your startup shine, as well as advisors to help guide your business and give your business a jump start. Networking is a great way to find investors and shareholders, too, as people can be more open to financial investments when you have common connections or interests.

Though in-person meetups are still great resources to find local connections, more and more networking opportunities can be found online. This includes things like the Slack communities and startup incubators we mentioned before, as well as virtual seminars and newsletter subscriptions.

Secure capital

This is perhaps the most crucial step in your startup journey. Unless you can cover the initial expenses yourself, you'll need to find funding to cover them and any other costs from expanding and growing your company. And anyone willing to invest in your company will want a detailed breakdown of your finances, including estimated expenses and financial projections.

When planning your business, you'll need to figure out what kind of funding your company will need and what your funding options are. This includes bootstrap funding (wherein you cover the initial costs yourself), friends and family loans, business loans and grants, angel and venture capital investors, and crowdsourcing.

Many startups use several different funding types throughout their product journey; for instance, during the initial seed stage, many founders rely on bootstrapping or friends and family loans, whereas venture capitalists and angel investors are more likely to invest in the later stages of your product.

The type of startup you have will also play a role in determining your funding sources; crowdsourcing may be more of an option for B2C (business to consumer) companies, while investors may be more interested in B2B (business to business) companies.

Regardless of how you get your funding, you'll need to make sure you get the right amount to cover your initial and operating costs. It's estimated that almost 30% of startups fail because they run out of money.

Formally establish your startup

Last but not least, it's time to formally establish your startup.

The first step is choosing your company's name and registering for a domain. You'll have to make sure the one you've chosen is not already in use, which can be done by searching federal trademark records or the web.

Next, you'll have to decide on a business structure. This can include informal business structures, like sole proprietorships and general partnerships, and formal business structures like LLCs and corporations. In informal business structures, a startup is considered to be an extension of the owners, who bear the business' tax and liability burdens. In contrast, formal business structures require registration with the government as an independent entity. This provides liability protection for the owners as well as tax benefits.

Once you've figured out your business structure, you'll need to get all the necessary legal documentation together. This includes founder employment agreements, which are legal agreements between the founder and their company, and vesting agreements, which represent an agreement between the company and a shareholder (for instance, an employee) that provides restrictions for the shareholder's ownership in the company.

If you choose to include advisors in your founding team, it's also a good idea to formalize an advisory agreement. This will outline all the requirements and stipulations of the relationship between company and advisor, including terms of equity and confidentiality.

Lastly, you'll also have to register your business with the appropriate local and national registries. The steps to this will vary based on location, so we recommend looking up information on how to start a business on your government's website and following those instructions.

Key tips for your first startup

Now that you know the steps you need to take to start your startup, let's go over some extra tips to get you started on the right foot.

Hire a lawyer

Figuring out how to start a business the right way can be tricky even without all the legal stuff. It's always a good idea to get someone more experienced with starting a business to make sure you're doing everything properly.

You'll need to find a business lawyer who understands the nuances of startups. This includes establishing deals with investors and formalizing legal agreements for your founding team and shareholders.

Though you shouldn't need a legal professional on retainer just yet, it's a good idea to have someone you can trust to go to if you need help.

Build a great website

Every company needs a good website, but having a site that's pleasing aesthetically and SEO-driven is especially important for newer businesses. 

There are many steps to this. First and foremost, you'll need to secure a domain. The company you choose to go with will depend on what you're looking for; it's a good idea to shop around to see what will work best for you.

Likewise, you'll also need to figure out what website builder or platform you want to use to create your site with. This is another very personal decision, and it completely depends on what your company needs. This can simply be a site like WordPress, or you can choose something like Unstack or Webflow which allow for more customization.

Now that you've got the foundation of your website sorted out, you'll need to figure out what you want your website to look like. This includes things like brand colors, stock images, and even what individual landing pages you want to showcase. It's also a good idea to look into SEO or hire someone specifically to do the backend SEO research and analysis for you.

A great tip is to look at what others in your industry are doing and what they choose to focus on. You don't want to overload your viewers with information, but still give them all the details necessary to hook them in.

Perfect your elevator pitch

When you're a startup founder, people are going to ask you about your business, and you'll need to have something ready to say to them. Nothing is more helpful in this scenario than a good elevator pitch: a quick, 30-second overview of your business, what it does, and what makes it stand out.

You should already have the foundation of your elevator pitch in your business plan, but you'll need to refine it for actually speaking to people. What works on paper won't always work out loud. You don't want to seem like you're reciting something from memory, and this might mean simplifying the words and language you use.

It's also a good idea to practice your elevator pitch with people who aren't too familiar with your product. They can help you figure out what to say and what works best.

Find a good accounting system

Every business needs a robust accounting and bookkeeping system in order to measure value, track goal progress and run smoothly in general. It's also a necessary system in place to accept payments, take care of payroll and track your finances. 

There are many different options you can choose from when thinking about how you want to handle accounting. While larger companies may choose to hire an in-house accountant or bookkeeper, many smaller startups use accounting software like QuickBooks, Zoho or FreshBooks. Regardless, you'll want to make sure whatever you settle on measures key numbers like income, expenses, capital expenditures, and profit and loss ratios. 

Insure your startup

Most startups will need some form of insurance, and in many places, forms of insurance like worker's compensation and unemployment insurance are legally required. Learning about the specific requirements for your area is another part of the research you should do into the legal requirements for your business.

Regardless, insurance is one of the best forms of protection for the company you've just spent so much time building. It's always a good idea to cover yourself in case of disaster and have coverage for your employees as well.

When shopping around for insurance, you'll first need to figure out what your needs are. What risks are the most important for you to cover? How much coverage do you actually need? Other things like deductibles, coverage limits and exclusions and gaps are also important to know.

Some of the forms of coverage you might want to look into are product liability insurance, health insurance, cybersecurity insurance and business interruption insurance.

Pay close attention to all business contracts

You're likely going to encounter many different business contracts while setting up your startup. They're an important part of business, but for those just starting out, they can be a little hard to navigate and understand.

That's why it's so important to pay attention to everything you sign. Business contracts are legally binding, so you need to make sure you know what you're signing. Otherwise, you can easily get taken advantage of or set yourself up for obstacles down the road.

Lawyers can help you navigate detailed documents and help you negotiate the terms, but it's a good idea to go over the contract yourself and make sure you know what it says.

Though they can be daunting, you shouldn't shy away from getting a contract in writing. Some startups and small businesses prefer to conduct business on informal and unspoken agreements, but having a signed contract can prevent confusion in the future and provide rules for both parties.

Good business contracts need to describe all obligations each party involved needs to fulfill, limit liabilities, set parameters (e.g. time frame), and all financial terms and risks and responsibilities. Some forms of business contracts you should look into are sales or service agreements, licence agreements, offer letters to employees or agreements with independent contractors, confidentiality agreements and non-disclosure agreements.

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UserVitals is an all-in-one customer feedback management system for businesses of all sizes. Learn more about how we can help you grow your startup through user feedback here.