How To Make A Business Case For Starting the Business

Businesses get started for many reasons. Some of them are not very valid. Far too often it’s to provide a job for the owner. At other times it is an entrepreneurial seizure (see M Gerber ,”The E Myth”). The future owner simply decides that enough is enough. The scenario may look like this:

• The owner has a skill, a trade , or a profession and thinks this is enough to go into business on their own
• The individual wants to be independent and not have a boss to deal with
• The individual sees how much money the owner makes and wants the same. Why be an employee? Have it all.
• The individual is unable to hold down a job. Constantly getting fired or quitting
• The individual is unable to find a job so being self employed becomes a necessity
• It may search for a better lifestyle with more free time
• There is the personal satisfaction of taking on a challenge
• It may be an attempt to build a future for the family

Some of the above are tempting to most of us and we may have all been there at one time. However the above are all the wrong reasons for starting a business.

They all center on the business owners and their needs. Instead valid reasons should be concerned with the customers that the business owner wants to serve.

What are valid reasons for starting a business? The focus must be on the customer and not on the owner. By this I mean that the business must provide value for the prospective customers.

There are only 2 valid reasons for starting a business:

1. We have identified a market need not being filled and we can fill that need
2. We can provide a solution that is more effective than what currently exists in the market place. We are faster, cheaper, in general better in some way.

It must never be that of satisfying the owner’s needs.

Take a self diagnostic and assess the viability of starting your business