NYC is one of the toughest places to survive in every sense of the word, but if you make it here, you will make it anywhere! Local moving companies in NYC can readily tell you how many people and businesses come and go each year. According to research done by Office of Advocacy for the Small Business Administration, new businesses in NYC have 50-50 chances of surviving first 5 years. For example, in 2005 approximately 671,800 small businesses started operating, while 544,800 closed their doors and all in the same year. It seems that NYC’s real estate market is not the only cut-throat industry in town. Let us here at Dynamic Movers NYC, help you figure out the best way to start a business in NYC.
Reconsider your readiness to start a business in NYC
We did say we are going to help you figure out how to start a business in NYC, but sometimes it’s better to know when to give up before the whole thing costs you too much money and time. Every successful business started as an idea and the first step is to start materializing this idea through action.
First, ask your self: Do I really know what I’m doing? Do you possess enough knowledge about the business you are trying to start? If not, put a hold on your dream and try to find a job in the industry. Try to stay there for a year and learn as much as possible. This will also be a great test for your determination and you will quickly realize if this business is true for you.
The second question you should ask yourself is: Is my idea really good? Today it’s hard to think of anything new you can offer to NYC’s busy market. You can be successful with an existing concept as long as your product is of great quality. But be careful not to pick something that is already overflowing the market.
The last important question you should ask yourself is: Am I going to be able to raise enough money? It’s very important to be able to make some kind of estimate early on as to how much money you would need in the early phases of your business. To be able to do this you need to try and see what your costs would be, from rent to advertisement.
Get help!
If your admission to start a business in NYC hasn’t been deterred by our three cringing questions, you are ready to continue with your idea. We believe anyone can succeed with enough cash flow, education and careful planning and it has never been easier to lay the groundwork for a business. There is so much help online and in libraries, even entire publications devoted to offering advice and knowledge.
SBA
To start go to our personal favorite Small Business Administration government website, which has all the information you would need from links to relevant providers to paperwork checklists. The SBA website broke down their Business Guide into 4 categories:
- Plan your business
- Launch your business
- Manage your business
- Grow your business
SCORE
This helps you navigate the complex waters of starting your business and makes so much more sense in the long run. Next stop is SCORE, short for Service Corps of Retired Executives. This amazing organization has over 10 000 volunteers comprised of working, as well as retired executives. These men and women are at your service, ready to help you start a business in NYC. SCORE is a non-profit organization which offers counseling services free of charge to small businesses in all areas.
To help start a business in NYC you can also tap into a bunch of online resources. These were developed in the recent years, equipped with all the necessary tools to provide small-business owners with the information they need to start a business. Our favorites are Work.com and E-venturing. Websites such as StartupNation offer help in an array of tutorial videos, while Bplans, owned and operated by Palo Alto Software, offers a 100 free sample business plans. There are so many others out there, and if you keep researching you will find all you need to begin your business venture.
To start a business in NYC is to do your market research.
For a good enough DIY market research, you can turn to the internet again. There you will find a good starting position on none other than Census Bureau. If you are intimidated by the sheer amount of information at Census Bureau, try CensusScope instead. This website offers more manageable segments of demographics’ information. Don’t forget that your business is as good as the information it has been founded on. We can only strongly advise you to do your homework when it comes to market research!
The paperwork…
Once you accumulated enough knowledge and information on how to start a business in NYC, you are ready to focus on your business plan. The best strategy is to keep things light, nice & simple, this rule will also apply to your budget later on. The business plan is a very important blueprint for your entire operations plus a tool for convincing investors to invest in your idea. Again we suggest you turn to U.S. Small Business Administration for guidance.
SBA offers guidance, examples, tools and simple templates for your business plan. The template that caught our eye is the “Lean Startup Format“. It offers a more compact content compared to traditional robust business plans:
- key partnerships
- main resources
- crucial activities
- value proposition (unique value your company brings to the market)
- customer relationships
- customer segments
- channels
- cost structure
- revenue streams
How to register your business in NYC
No article can extensively cover everything one needs to start a business from start to finish. We realized this once we started working on this topic so we decided to offer some cornerstones. This article is an attempt to try and steer you in the right direction. One of the crucial steps in starting a business in NYC is to look into laws and regulations featured by the NY state. We came up with this list of how to register your business in NYC:
- Choose a legal structure or simply-who is legally responsible for your business.
- Register your business. Corporations, Limited Liability Companies, and Limited Partnerships register with New York State. General Partnerships and Sole Proprietorship register with the appropriate County Clerk.
- Apply for an Employer Identification Number (EIN), also known as a Federal Tax ID Number.
- Register as a Sales Tax Vendor with the NYS Department of Taxation and Finance.
- Research required insurance such as workers’ compensation, liability, and disability insurance.
NYC is scary yet wonderful in more ways than one and opening a business would be up there among the scariest things you can venture to do. When to start a business in NYC and how to do it are just some of the complex questions we tried to answer here today. Dynamic Movers NYC would like to wish you luck in any future endeavor, especially if you are looking to hire movers Upper West Side. We can offer help for that as well.