Assess your own skills and decide what other skills you will need to make your idea work. Bring in a business partner if needed and talk to people or businesses you will need to outsource to.
Being at university means you have thousands of students and staff to test your ideas on, conduct market research, free access to expensive books and computers, entrepreneurial societies to take advantage of; and above all it’s a great place to network. While at university you are surrounded by campus resources and a support network that can support your business start-up.
No one expects you to have all the skills necessary to do all the work yourself. Whether you need an expert on SEO of someone to help you with your marketing – make sure you get the right people to help you with your business but don’t start employing people until you really, really need to. You need to keep costs as low as possible.
Find an accountant if you haven’t already. You finances are important to get right. If you can’t afford to pay an accountant, see if you know someone with skills that can help you.
Make sure you have the support of family and friends. You’ll need it.
Look into business mentors. We have several here at Hub. A mentor can offer a good level of support and act as a sounding board, providing advice and guidance to help you overcome challenges as your business grows. Mentors can help you identify your strengths and weaknesses and can also provide you with some useful contacts. It’s important to realise that mentors are not consultants – they are there to help you explore, question and resolve issues with your business. In order to succeed, a mentoring relationship needs to be a two-way process – be prepared to put in as much as you are getting out of it.
There are start-up networking groups out there, but you would be better off looking at local events and opportunities to network. These opportunities are not always signposted as ‘an opportunity to network’ because every opportunity you have to tell someone about your business is an opportunity to network.