This month in the Legal Solutions for Small Business Newsletter, we are focusing on the questions you need to answer to start a business.  However, even if you have been in business a while, it is always good to re-evaluate these questions because the place you were in when you started your business and where you are today may be drastically different.

To start a business all one needs is to start selling something - a product or a service.  However, to make a successful business, you need to plan for the business.  To know where you are going with your business, you need to think about, and hopefully have answers to, the following:

1.     How are you going to start the business financially?  Are you going to try to get loans from a bank?  Are you going to get money from your family and friends?  Are you going to self-finance the business from savings?  Have you won the lottery and don't need to worry about money?  If you are already in business, are you financially solvent without outside money?  Are you looking to expand and need a new source of funds to do so?

2.     Who is going to help you with the business?  Are you going to be a solopreneur?  Is your family going to help you?  Are you going to have one or more business partners?  Are you going to have employees?  If you are already in business, are you happy with where you are?  Are you wanting to grow and hire additional people?  Do you want to start getting family members (such as your children) more involved?

3.     Who are your advisers?  Ever business needs advisers.  You need to have an accountant, an attorney, a banker, a business adviser, and an insurance agent.  In some cases, you may need additional advisers, but at the very least these five people will make you team.  If you are already in business, you may have found that your team of advisers needs to be expanded.  For instance, do you need a web presence and didn't have one when you started?  Are you at the point you need a bookkeeper?  A payroll company?

4.     Have you written out your business plan?  Whether it is two pages or twenty pages, each business needs a business plan to make sure that the owner understands where the business is starting and where the owner expects it to be (even if this is three sentences stating something as I want to open a coffee shop on Colfax that will cater to teenagers and sell it to fund my retirement in 10 years).  If you are already in business, re-evaluate what your plan was when you started.  Do you need to modify it?  Have you discovered areas that you want to add to your business?  Possibly reign in others?

5.     Where to plan to end up?  Business owners need to know where they plan to be in 5 years, 10 years, and 20 years.  Although they may not end up in those places, knowing where they plan to be help focuses them on their goals (even if those goals change).  And if you are already in business, again, it may be time to re-evaluate this.  You may have been happy having only a store front when you opened your retail space but now know in the next five years you want to go global through a website store also.

In the next few months, we will explore how the idea affects the feasibility of a business (or may change it over time) and how ambition of the owner can help make or break it.   

As always, if you have any questions about starting a business or already have a business and need help, please feel free to contact me, Elizabeth Lewis, your Colorado business lawyer!