12 min

100 Steps to Startup

For startups and small businesses, checklist of steps to get off the ground:

1. Find an Idea

"The Riches are in the Niches"

Find an idea, then niche it. Then, niche it again. Find a micro niche starting out. You always expand as you grow, but winning over your first customers and clients is much easier if your product is catering directly to them. The more directed it is to them, the easier it is to close sales.

If it can be done in excel, it's a possible Software As A Service (SaaS) - Microconf

2. Market Research

The goal is to find product market fit

One of the biggest reasons business fail is that they make something people aren't willing to buy

3. Competitor Research

If there is no competition, then it's probably not a good idea

We often hear about new innovative startups, and it can create belief that our idea has to be new and innovative. However, this is due to Survivorship Bias. For every new successful idea, there are many more that tried to be new but failed.

First mover is not often an advantage... competition means ability to learn from their mistakes and data, vs having to be first one to make them, also gives anchor point to compare against

4. Tagline

5. Slogan

6. One-Liner

"If you confuse, you lose" -- StoryBrand

7. One-Liner

8. Routine / Schedule

9. Mission Statement

Determine your core values

10. Brand Statement

11. Find a domain

Domain Ranking System

12. Choose Business Name

13. Purchase your domain

We like to use Namecheap vs GoDaddy.

14. Market Segments

15. Customer Profiles / Identities

16. Business Phone Number

17. Business Cards

18. Create Your Website Funnel

Each section and page should work to push a customer or client to go to the next step in your funnel

Have at least one Call To Action button on every page

19. Create Your Sales Funnel

Upselling

20. Business Email

We use Gmail Business

We prefer to use 'admin'as the main login, ie admin@company.com

Can make aliases like tech, legal, support

Suggest doing this out of the gate to stay organized when signing up and storing info into password management system

We like using hello as our general contact email

21. Email Marketing Funnel

22. Email Response Templates

23. Note Management System

24. Social Media Funnel

25. Customer Relations Management (CRM) System

26. Account System

Can use apps like: Google Sheets, AirTable, Xero, Quickbooks

27. Password Management System

28.

We suggest using BitWarden if not paid

Has benefit of 2 people on shared free team account

Prefer 1Password if paid

Cleaner user experience, more seemless autofill

Benefit of integration with haveibeenpwned

Can store QR codes for 2FA as well

29. 2FA Authenticator

We like to use Authy

Store backup codes into password management system, else if you lose phone can lose access to your authentication app

30. Pitch Deck

Guy Kawasaki 10 slides

Slidebean

31. Pitch Friends and Family

Start within your current network for friends and family

32. Collect Feedback

Quantitative vs Qualitative data collection

How valuable is feedback actually? Most valuable is closed sales

When is advice from customer helpful for your business?

Often customer insight is valuable, but the solution may not be, your goal is to determine what is the meaning behind what they are saying

33. Create Your Free Giveaway

34. Social Media Content

Cover banner

Artwork for social media

35. Facebook

36. Instagram

37. X (Twitter)

38. Reddit

39. YouTube

40. Pinterest

41. Other Social Media

42. Marketing Material

43. Website Design

44. Website Message Content

45. Website Hosting

46. Personal LinkedIn Page

47. LinkedIn Business Page

48. Internal Wiki

49. Task Management System

Trello

Airtable

ClickUp

50. Legal Pages

The following is not legal advice

Good, IF, less include. If states something incorrect, much worse to have than nothing at all