How to Start a Small Business

Fred Glave: Hello! My name is Fred Glave and I am a volunteer with SCORE, Counselors to America's Small Business. This series of videos will take you through the step by step process necessary to establish a small business, you will learn how to become a successful small business owner, so we are going to talk about passion and commitment necessary to ensure your success. We will also take you through a step by step self analysis, so that you can determine for yourself whether you have the skillset necessary to be successful.

We will them move on to talk about how you take your business idea and turn it into a viable product or service offering. We will discuss some of those hard to answer questions, such as Where does your product fit in the marketplace?

, What makes it so compelling that people are going to want to buy it?

, Who is your competition and how do you differentiate against that competition?

We will them move on to that all important question, How much money do I need?

We will show you how to develop a detailed, itemized list of your start up expenses, how to estimate your revenue on a month to month basis, how to estimate your cost of sales, your cost of goods on a month to month basis and finally also how to estimate your monthly operating expenses.

We will also then show you how to put all those numbers together in order to determine the total amount of cash you will need, in order to ensure that you can grow your business to a successful, profitable, entity. We will then move on to that all important item, a business plan, what is included in the business plan, how you go about making it and where you can seek help.

And then we will talk finally about some of the more mundane issues, that how you go about setting up your business, what are the forms of a corporation that you can chose from, how you get business licenses and the other government permits, how you file your copy of paper work in order to be able to pay quarterly withholding tax for your employees and annual W-2 statements.

Before we begin let me tell you a little bit more about SCORE and myself. SCORE is a nation wide, all volunteer organization providing counsel and advice to small business owners on a no fee basis, all of this are experienced business people with many years in starting, growing and managing business both large and small. For myself, starting with a PhD and electrical engineering, I spent forty years in the Telecommunications industry and then I started my own venture, The Silicon Valley Startup company. Through all of that experience, I have gained experience in R&D, marketing, sales, product management and all levels of the senior management through being the Chief Executive Officer.

So let us begin and Mr. David Krauskopf is going talk to you about the passion and commitment necessary to be a successful entrepreneur.