Good news, you don't need to read a whole library of business books on how to start a business. But from our perspective as digital marketers, these are the bare essentials to get any business off to a great start.

A note on permission marketing: modern marketing has changed from generic ads to personalized messaging. The modern day consumer is savvy and has Google at their fingertips. You need to learn their real problems and build a solution to solve. Not the other way around: you don't want to be a solution in search of a problem.

Find your idea

Not just a good one, a great one. You need to find a business idea you will be willing to fight for.

The famous advice is to “scratch your own itch”: which means to start with a problem you personally struggle with and know well. You’ll have the advantage of already intimately knowing the context around the problem/solution paradigm. But that’s when the blinders should come off. Ask others who have this problem how they deal with it and what an ideal solution would look like.

Train the idea muscle. As with anything, you can train yourself to be good at having great ideas. It’s a numbers game. We need to get comfortable with generating ideas en masse, such that the subset of quality will consistently show up.

Validate with lean market research

This is our specialty. At the intersection of SEO (search engine optimization) and growth strategy, we’re using Google Ads as a proxy for the market to measure demand and identify the target audience.

We can run a test campaign for you, or you can download our playbook for free and do it yourself.

If you want the free version of this methodology, start with a social media account. Don’t worry so much about branding. Instead focus on the positioning statement. Testing via organic social will take much longer, maybe several months, before you start to see real traction. But it's free!

Ads simply accelerate the process of finding crucial insights about your target audience. In either case we’re working to learn A) if anyone is interested in our offering, B) who they are and what their deal is. Such that we can craft the offering for them, addressing their deeper concerns.

Try not to rely too heavily on any one platform, since they could change an algorithm or policy without notice. It's good business practice to develop assets you wholly control. We’re aware of the irony of relying on Google Ads, but we’re also working under the assumptions that many people use Google to find things, and since Ads are Google’s main source of revenue they won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

Be open to all testing for traction in all acquisition channels. The aim is to find You may see a level of interest in testing through one marketing channel (e.g. ads, organic social, events, etc),

Build an MVP to start iterating

This MVP stands for minimum viable product, an element of lean startup methodologies.

If it's a system or product you’re thinking about selling, start with spreadsheets and no-code automation. If it's a service, do it all manually, yourself. The goal here isn't to take over the world, it's to learn from your audience.

You want to stay in the trenches of customer support and success for as long as you can. Go talk to your (prospective) customer and listen. Ask short, open ended questions and let them do all the talking.

Take insights from your audience and fold that into product development. Craft the solution over many revisions to suit your audience’s needs.

Don't quit your day job

One of the main differences between a small business and a large one is that the owner decided to stop pushing for growth.

To start a small business, you run through this process and once you hit your goal you can coast. To start a large business, don’t stop until you hit Mars.

We don't all need to be the next Bezos or Musk. $1,000 extra per month makes a huge difference to most people. There are many examples of people working on lean businesses that do just this. And most of these founders, side hustlers and indie hackers are still holding down a normal 9-to-5 job.

Incorporate and make it official

Think about what you really want in life and start with that end in mind. Is it more freedom in some capacity, a creative outlet, early retirement, investing, travel, funding a hobby, quitting your job? Use the five-fold why technique.

It’s probably not a shiny new business card that’ll bring you fulfillment. Plus, you’ll need a good reason to burn the midnight oil and work weekends.

But once you're making enough extra cash to consistently cover your household overhead and goals, then you can go all-in on this new business idea and wrap up other income generating activities. Only after you accomplish all of the above would we recommend going through the next steps of incorporation.

Remember the world of business is rapidly changing. Despite the complexity this brings, we also now have many new tools to help out. The internet, software and lean startup methodologies are accelerating the iterative learning process. So start with a problem you're already familiar with. Validate using lean market research to measure demand and identify the target audience. Start small with an MVP and iterate to greatness. Don't quit your day job, these projects are more flexible than ever before. Then finally, and only if you really want, make it official and go big.