Mark Poppen

This post is part 1 in a series of 3 posts of starting your design business.
Starting your design business – Part 1: Prepare
Starting your design business – Part 2: Get started
Starting your design business – Part 3: Keep it up

In a previous post, I gave some tips on running your own business, but I never really gave advice on how to actually start up. I’m not an expert and the following tips will not guarantee success, but this is how I did it, and for me: so far, so good.

Prepare

When I came to Canada in 2007, I had to wait for a residence/work permit, so I had loads of time to investigate what the business culture was like. I knew I wanted to start my business from scratch, and I did not want to to start off on a payroll at a local supermarket or something, so I did a lot of preparing for when I would get my permits to work.
Because my wife was still Canadian, she started working right away, which now is our safety-net. I’ll get back to that later.

I suggest a few things in preperation.

1: Find the website of your government. The government of Canada has a website with all the information about federal rules when setting up a business.
2: Find the website of your province/state. I live in Saskatchewan, and they have a separate website for everything provincial.
3: See if you can get a business advisor through the government. I’ll get back on this later.
4: Find out if you need a business license and how you can/should register your business.
5: Work on your business plan. Knowing where you want to be in 5 years is like winning half the battle. You know what you’re working for, which can only motivate.
6: Prepare a financial plan. This way you have a monthly feel of if the business is feasible or not. You create an excel sheet of all the income and expenses you’ll be expecting.
Your business advisor can help you with step 5 and 6.
7: Find an accountant. This person doesn’t have to do all the number crunching for you, but at least build a relationship, so if you have questions about your financial situation or things like taxes, you have someone to turn to.

Prepare some more

Get the simple and cheap things ready before you start advertising your business. Business cards for instance. A cheap way to market your business.
With these business cards in your pocket, you’ll have to go talk to business-people, you know, potential clients. Not so much to advertise your services, but to find out what the business-culture will be like. Do you like talking to these people, or are you having trouble connecting?
Something I did before I started was work on my own website. Since I had a lot of time, I had the opportunity to learn how to hand-code CSS. I read a bunch of design related tutorials and improved my Photoshop and Illustrator skills. I also created random personal websites, which I put in my portfolio. I got on Twitter and connected with a bunch of designers, who taught me a lot of things. Twitter is a huge resource for design tutorials and inspiration.

The business advisor

This guy has been a tremendous help when I started my business. You can ask anything about the business, and he will know it. If not, he knows where to find the answers. Usually, they have a really good feel for the market. As an example; My business advisor put himself in the position of being my (potential) client, and he would ask me questions a client would normally ask. I can tell you, there quite a few things I wasn’t prepared for, but because HE was the one asking, he could help me with the solution as well.
Now, as I said in the preparation-section earlier, you should find out if you can get an advisor through the government. This way, you’re not spending loads of money on consultations right off the bat. My business advisor came through CCS. I paid a whopping $ 5 (administration fee), and I got a business advisor that knew how Saskatchewan business people would do business with me. He helped me set up my business plan, financial plan and contract. He even referred me to a lawyer to have a look at that contract. I can say: without his help, my business would not have been where it is now. It also helps that he’s always talking to people that are starting up a business. He has a stack of my business cards for those kind of people.

Safety net

I couldn’t have done it without my wife. The only way to set up a business is to have a safety net for when things go sour. This can be in the form of a part time job, a bloated savings account, an inheritance or, like in my case, a wife with a decent paying job.
As I said earlier, while waiting for my residence permit, i was not allowed to work, so we had to live off 1 income. This was a good preparation for things to come.

Keep in mind: a loan is NOT a safety net! That will have to be paid off eventually, and the interest might even kill your business.

Part 2 of this series will be posted next week.

Please, leave a comment with your preparation strategies, or if you have links to useful websites for starting up a design business.

Tags: Business, startup, Tips

This entry was posted on Monday, October 19th, 2009 at 8:00 am and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.