You may be wondering where and how to start a small business scale in Nigeria. Should you work on your business name and logo or tackle your business structure? Does it make sense to already start applying for loans or focus on product development?
Sometimes, It can be difficult to know the right steps to take. But that’s ok. We are here to put you on the right track step by step to starting a small business scale in Nigeria. Starting your own business is all about trial and error. Working through the process to find what works for you and what resonates with potential customers.
But rather than being overwhelmed by all the decisions and tasks you have at hand, there are steps you can take to kickstart the development of your small scale business in Nigeria.
Let’s get started by taking these questions into consideration:
- How urgently do people need the thing you’re selling or offering right now?
- What’s the market size? Are there already a lot of people paying for products or services similar to yours? Have you honed in on who exactly your target market is? Being specific will help you focus your marketing message and investment.
- How easy is it (and how much will it cost you) to acquire a customer? If you’re selling enterprise software, this may require a significantly larger investment than a coffee shop.
- How much money and effort will it cost to deliver the value you would like to be offering?
- How long will it take to get to market? A month? A year? Three years?
- How much up-front investment will you need before you can begin?
- Will your business continue to be relevant as time passes?
Now that you know, So what do you think you can do to sustain your small business scale idea in Nigeria right now?
We’ll get into the specifics of how to explore the market and determine if you’re idea is a good fit in at the moment.
Proper Planning is a simple, one-page document that helps you refine your idea. It ensures that you’re considering your mission and value proposition early on, while also providing structure for the more technical portions of your business.
In fact, it will provide you with the perfect template to tackle the rest of these steps.
Steps To Start A Small Business Scale In Nigeria
1. Register Your Business
Registering your business with CAC is the first step toward making it real in Nigeria . However, as with the personal evaluation step, take your time to get to know the best brand name that can suite your business. Learn how to register business name online in Nigeria.
2. Fund your business
Depending on the size and goals of your venture, you may need to seek financing from an “angel” investor or from a venture capital firm. But, most small businesses begin with self funding, family and friends funding, loan and family, and so on. Learn how to secure loan in Nigeria.
3. Sort Business Location
If your business is online and you won’t need a storefront, you’re probably looking at building your website and choosing a shopping cart solution.
Maybe you’ll be able to work out of a home office or a co-working space instead of renting or buying office space. But if your business needs a physical location, there are so many considerations.
Finding a location in Nigeria is very simple. This is because Nigeria has the largest market in Africa. Learn how to start online business here;
4. Know Your Passion
Before diving into the details of your potential business, it’s best to take stock of yourself and your situation.
- Why do you want to start a business? Is it money, freedom, and flexibility, to solve a problem or some other reason?
- What are your skills?
- What industries do you know about?
- Do you want to provide a service or a product?
- What do you like to do?
- How much capital do you have to risk?
- Will it be a full-time or a part-time venture?
Your answers to these types of questions will help you narrow your focus.
This step is not supposed to dissuade you from starting your own business. Rather, it’s here to get you thinking and planning. In order to start a successful business, passion alone isn’t enough.
5. Set Goals by Self Analysis
You need to plan, set goals, and above all, know yourself. What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? How will these affect day-to-day operations? You could conduct a good analysis on yourself to figure this out.
As you get started, your business will likely dominate your life so make sure that what you’re doing is stimulating and challenging, but not completely outside of your expertise.
Ask yourself:
- What would you do if money wasn’t an issue?
- Is money really important? Or rather, is making a lot of it really important? If it is, you’re probably going to be cutting out a number of options.
- What really matters to you?
- Do you have the support of your family, especially your immediate family? They may have to make sacrifices at the beginning, so it’s important to have them behind you.
- Who do you admire in business? Maybe there’s even someone in the industry you’d like to go into. Why do you admire them? What are their likable traits? What can you learn from them?
Answering these questions (and many more) about yourself and your abilities isn’t necessarily going to ensure you’re successful, but it will get you thinking about your goals and about what motivates and inspires you.
6. Reconstruction Of idea
Once you know why you want to start a business, it’s time to find and develop your idea.
More than likely, you already have something in mind after going through your self-assessment. But if you need inspiration, you can check out our sample plan library to explore different industries, or read up on trending start-up ideas.
Now it’s not enough to just think you have a good idea and run with it. You need to validate that there is a need. You also need to start addressing whether this idea is sustainable or not.
7. Make Market Research
Evaluate your target audience. It’s not enough to just state the current market. You need to know what portion you’ll be able to claim and if it’s really possible.
To determine how attractive your prospective market really is, we suggest doing a market analysis.
Once you decide on a business that fits your goals and lifestyle, it’s time to evaluate your idea.
Who will buy your product or service? Who will your competitors be?
This process will help you address your opportunity, value proposition, the market size, and competition sections of your Lean Plan.
8. Validate your idea
It’s important to field test your idea, services, or products. As you conduct research, take the time to actually speak to your potential customers.
Present them with the concept you intend to launch to gauge interest, as well as confirm which competitors they may already use and the price they’d be willing to pay.
If you can, it may be worth developing a minimum viable product (MVP) to help showcase what you’ll be providing.
9. Write Your Business Plan
In the simplest terms, a business plan is a roadmap—something you will use to help you chart your progress and that will outline the things you need to do in order to reach your goals.
Rather than thinking of a business plan as a hefty document that you’ll only use once (perhaps to obtain a loan from a bank), think of it as a tool to manage how your business grows and achieves its goals.
While you might use your business plan as part of your pitch to investors and banks, and to attract potential partners and board members, you will primarily use it to define your strategy, tactics, and specific activities for execution, including key milestones, deadlines, and budgets, and cash flow. Learn how to write business plan here.
10. Create a Bank Account for your Business
Once you have a business registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) Nigeria online portal, you are ready to open a business bank account.
