You may be thinking of starting a new business, or you may be looking to buy an existing business. Perhaps you've decided to turn your hobby/skills into a business. It is essential to understand the differences between a business and a hobby. Owning a business can involve a lifestyle change as well as large financial commitment.

Analysis can help you anticipate any challenges you may face and help you overcome them. We've given some key areas to help you in thinking about the business you'd like to start, the planning process and identifying how your product or service will differ from those of other businesses in the marketplace.

1. Understand or Analyse yourself

• Operating a business is not just about working for yourself, it's also about having the necessary management skills, industry expertise, technical skills, finance and of course a vision to grow and succeed.
• What are your business and personal goals?
• What are your technical skills?
• What income do you need to generate?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of starting your own business.

2. Look your strengths and weaknesses

You will require a few skills to start and run a successful business. The skills needed can include:

• management skills, including business planning and the ability to think long term 
• interpersonal skills, including the ability to communicate and network well to grow your business
• Industry expertise
• technical knowledge, particularly about the product or service you are selling
• Marketing skills and knowledge to promote your products and services
• Financial skills

If you want to develop your business skills further, consider investing in training for yourself or your employees. 

3. Understand about business structure and type

Each business structure and type can have different legal requirements, so it's important you understand these requirements before you decide what is best for your business. You can have a look of our business structure comparison by clicking here. You can consider these given points for the same:

• What type and nature of business will you start?
• What products or services will you sell and how will you sell them e.g. online, retail or both?
• What do you know about your chosen industry?
• Will you be importing or exporting goods?

4. Look your product or service

This knowledge is essential to any business, whether online, home-based or otherwise. Without a good idea of what product or service you'll offer, it can be very hard to move forward with planning and marketing your business.

Depending on what you market or sell, will you only do business online, or will you also have an office space or store to run as well? This can have an impact on your business in terms of staffing, storage space, and rent costs.

• Is there a market for your product/service?
• What skills do you need?
• Who are your competitors?
• What difference will you bring to the market?

5. Know your customers

Knowing who are your prospective customers can help you define your business. Do some research into your potential (or existing) customers or clients, and their habits - this means checking out who will be buying or using your goods and services, and how they normally do this. Understanding your customer base is important. Investigate what kind of customers usually buy online, what they're buying, and how they find their goods and services.

6. Know your plans

It may be tempting to get on the internet right away and start experimenting with setting up an online business. However, a little planning can go a long way in ensuring your business is a success. Creating business and marketing plans can help you identify goals and develop strategies for achieving them.

How do I create a business or marketing plan?

Your basic business plan should be drafted before you go into business, but once started, you should always be thinking about what you can add to it. It should contain some core information, such as why you want to go into business, and what your goals for the business are. The plan should be clear and to-the-point.

Your marketing plan's aim is to help you reach your target market and boost your customer base and bottom line. Drafting your plans can involve thinking about:

• what your business name will be
• how you are going to manage your business
• looking after finances
• developing products and services according to market.

Disclaimer Note: The provided whole business guide is not a professional consulting or any advice. This is recommendatory or optional in nature to read or follow. This is provided here to just give you an idea about different type of processes while starting a business.