Starting a Business For Dummies, 4th Edition

Chapter 1

Preparing for Business

In This Chapter

Getting to grips with the basics of business strategy

Working up to opening up

Measuring your business’s viability

Growing for success

When you’re starting a business, particularly your first business, you need to carry out the same level of preparation as you would for crossing the Gobi Desert or exploring the jungles of South America. You’re entering hostile territory. A stroll down any high street in the land shows you just how tough it is out there. Since the last edition of this book, Comet, JJB Sports, Clinton Cards, Game, Borders, Barratts, Jane Norman, Habitat, Oddbins, Adams Childrenswear, Principles, Sofa Workshop, Allied Carpets, Viyella, Dewhursts, Woolworths, MFI and Zavvi/Virgin Megastore have hit the rocks. Some 53 retailers have closed 4,000 stores.

Your business idea may be good, it may even be great, but such ideas are two a penny. The patent office is stuffed full of great inventions that have never returned tuppence to the inventors who spent so much time and money filing them. And failure is pretty much a norm ...