Are you keen to start a business in 2025? Well done.
Determining whether a specific year is an excellent time to start a business depends on various factors, so there is no right or wrong time to get your startup operational.
If you are risk averse, conduct thorough research, seek advice from experts in your industry, and carefully evaluate the specific circumstances before deciding if 2025 is a good year for starting your business.
In this article, we share our 5 tips and more to assist you in creating a competitive business in 2025.
1. Create a Solution
Rather than considering what you’ll sell and how much you’ll earn, focus on what you can solve for your target market. This will make it easier for you to gain a better customer base. Putting yourself in your customers’ shoes will tell you precisely what to offer, how to provide it, and who to aim toward.
Your business should be a solution, not just a broad offer to whoever comes across it.
When people buy things, they usually do this because they need them. Call it an itch that needs scratching – most of your customers will have a problem your company offers to solve. They are searching for the solution; if you provide it, they will instantly pick your brand.
Here are the three things you should think about before you get started:
- What problems does your buyer persona need to be resolved?
- What kinds of problems can you solve and how?
- What benefits do people have from choosing your new business?
Learning about this itch for your target audience is your best strategy today. You can base all of your methods and advertising on providing a solution to a problem. In 2024, ensure your startup business is focused on solving something competitors are failing.
2. Find the Right Market to Target
Know your USPs and KPIs so your startup has a competitive advantage and can stand out in a big crowd. How? You will need to know your product or service very well, including its selling points, which may include:
- Service quality and innovation
- Right price point
- Excellent customer service
Naturally, your target audience will expect certain things from you to pick you from the crowd. You can only reach out to the right people if you research the market that is likely to buy your products or services. Seek to learn what your customers need and how your offerings can meet their needs. To do this task well, try the following task:
- Create Customer Personas Develop detailed profiles of your ideal customers. Consider demographics, psychographics, behaviors, and preferences.
- Competitor Analysis: Analyze competitors to identify their target audience. Understand what markets they are serving and any gaps in their approach.
- Social Media Listening Monitor social media platforms for discussions related to your industry. Identify potential customers’ trends, concerns, and preferences.
You can take many more actions to conduct effective market research. In reality, businesses conduct market research to learn more about their customer base and meet their needs.
Regularly revisit and refine your market research strategy based on new information and changes in the market landscape.
3. Take Care of Your Financing
Most new businesses are financed by the founders’ savings or bank loans. Creating a business these days is expensive, especially if you haven’t planned your expenses. If you go in this blindly, many unexpected expenses will show and stop you before you even get a chance to shine on the market.
Financing is significant when starting a business. During the startup phase, you will spend more than you earn.
Plan to have ample working capital and contingency funds to pay employees, freelancers, and suppliers. Hiring marketing experts and SEO professionals and engaging a lawyer to ensure your business operates within local and regional laws and its IP is protected will compete with your need to pay for online marketing and advertising.
Therefore, make a detailed financial plan for your new company. Try to anticipate everything and leave room for some unaccounted expenses. Only when you are confident that you can cover your business costs until it starts making your money should you begin this journey.
4. Get the Right People on Your Side
Great brands are built by teams, not individuals. Even if you are an owner and leader in a business, you need to understand that you’ll need people on your side. Whether they are employees, partners, managers, friends, or family – you need the right people to build a business from the ground up.
Before you start your company, learn what you need to establish in the industry.
- What experts do you need?
- Can you gather the information you need independently, or do you need research experts?
- Can you do your business plan alone, or do you need a professional?
Consider everything from skilled workers, motivational leaders, training opportunities, salespeople and managers, accounting firms, marketing experts, and legal assistance.
You can be a true expert in the industry, but there will still be things you will need help with. For example, do you know the difference between unilateral and bilateral contracts? Businesses frequently draft these, but unless you’ve practiced law, you won’t see a thing about them. Do an online search, and the results will present information on bilateral and unilateral contracts.
As a business owner, you need to cover all legal grounds and have the necessary documentation to establish contractual obligations with different parties, including:
- suppliers (of materials, products, services)
- staff (employed and freelancers)
- customers
- lenders
- affiliates
Additionally, you’ll need local expertise when you expand your business into other countries. For example, imagine setting up a branch in Bucharest; you will need a lawyer to manage the company formation and inform you of compliance and tax requirements.
5. Think SEO
SEO is still a priority for businesses. It’s evolving and becoming more and more critical every year. If you are starting your business in 2024, this should be at the top of your list. Engage SEO experts and use AI, automation, and other digital tools and platforms to optimize your online presence.
SEO, or Search Engine Organization, is Google’s way of determining whether or not your site deserves to rank higher for queries entered into search engines. If your business has a poor online presence and low SEO, it won’t reach the target audience you created it for.
The time to research SEO strategies is today before starting your new business. Even when you do, and things go well for you, you need to keep track of SEO’s latest trends. Algorithms and expectations change daily, so focus your strategy on ranking higher in results.