Deciding on the Direction for Your New Business

Starting out in business is very exciting, partly because the number of possibilities at your disposal can feel endless. You might have big ideas for how you're going to utilize gaps in the market to find enormous success, or you might have ambitions about how you'll revolutionize the industry.

While fun to think about, all of these directions can overwhelm you with possible options. When you actually get started in business, you want to make sure that you're focused on a specific vision. That's not to say that you should be inflexible, just that you need to have a clear idea of what your business is and who it's for.

Remote Considerations

When you start out in business, you might decide that it's easiest if you operate remotely – especially if you're the sole employee at the beginning. As your business grows and you hire people, this might not need to change, but you also might have an image of a 'proper' business as one that comes with its own dedicated workplace.

This doesn't have to be true, however – not with all of the modern cloud-based collaboration tools at your disposal. In fact, a remote structure can give way to a much more flexible hiring strategy. However, in order to ensure that this structure is benefiting you rather than holding you back, conducting research into necessities like proper network security and a decentralized intranet system might be worthwhile.

Your Personality and Tone

When you have big ideas for your business, there can be a whole host of smaller considerations that seem to just fall by the wayside. For example, the tone of voice that you use when responding to audiences on social media might not feel very important, but it's related to a very core consideration – what's your personality?

It's difficult to define the importance of having a brand personality. In some ways, it's a lesser consideration, especially when compared to things like your outreach or the quality of your services, yet at the same time, it's directly tied to those things. It's a fundamental factor in your marketing, and striking the right chord can help you to resonate with audiences in a way that your competitors might not. 

Is It Refining or Innovating?

When you are trying to compress those grand ideas down into something more actionable, you're going to have to make several choices that remove one potential route so that you can focus on what you believe is the right direction.

One question that you might ask yourself might come when you look at the other businesses comprising this particular landscape. Are you refining on what's come before you, or are you innovating and stepping towards something new? This is a foundational consideration, and if you are refining, you have to figure out how you can do so in a way that doesn't require the same resources as your more-established competitors. In this way, a lot of the innovation might come through things that don't cost money, like your personality, which can help you to develop a bond with your audiences.