2012, Launch your Business now

20 best places in the world to launch a business | Fortune

Since then I've grown my company, 4D, into a fully fledged co-location and connectivity provider with data centres in London, Surrey and Kent. Here are my top tips for launching a startup business that lasts. I left school at 17 to devote more time to the business; being an entrepreneur is a full-time job and if you are serious, you have to forget evenings and weekends or nine to five. By the time I was 21, the business had grown to a six-figure turnover but I realised that most of my revenues were being absorbed by renting space in other suppliers' data centres.

This led to the idea of buying one of my own.

1. Don't Brainstorm, Brainwrite Ideas

I thought the business concept might appeal to one or more private investors. So the first step, and with hindsight the most important one, was to prepare a credible business plan. To do this I bought an off-the-shelf package and simply followed the instructions. Step-by-step, the business plan emerged with a financial model which turned out to be remarkably accurate.

On the basis of the business plan I was able to convince a private investor to put up the money, not just to acquire the building, but also to finance the growth of the business during the first two to three years following the acquisition of the new premises.

The funding of the initial working capital was important because my business plan showed substantial losses until sufficient revenue could be generated to cover the very significant running costs. Unfortunately, the overheads have to be paid from day one, whether you have one or clients. You must have a formal, written business plan, including detailed market analysis, a marketing and sales plan, a financial plan and a realistic cashflow forecast. This becomes the foundation for your business, to be revisited every couple of months and updated and challenged as your business develops and the market changes.

The sad fact is that more than a third of new businesses fail in the first three years and it's rarely because of a bad business concept; it's almost always the result of running out of cash. As well as having working capital to cover early stage losses, it's imperative that you collect on your invoices on the due date.

If you don't, you are providing working capital to your customers and unless you are running a bank, you can't afford to do this. If cash is king for a successful business, it's the emperor for the startup.

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• 2. Know and Analyze Your Industry.

Understand and monitor your financials closely. Although the technical challenges in running my datacentre business are considerable, I learned early that having effective management processes were as important as a disciplined approach to the finances.

20 best places in the world to launch a business

That's when you start brainstorming ideas for your business based on information like your target audience and what products or services you could offer to enhance their lives, right where you live. The problem with brainstorming, according to Leigh Thompson, a management professor at the Kellogg School in Fast Company , "with people popping like champagne with ideas, what actually happens is when one person is talking you're not thinking of your own ideas. Thompson and Nordgren suggest that instead of brainstorming you try 'brainwriting.

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This technique encourages creativity and gives everyone a chance to share their ideas without being influenced by anyone and everyone else. After you've settled on a potential business idea, it's time to know who exactly will be purchasing your products or services.

Countdown To Launch Your Business

You also need to know who your competitors are and how much money it's going to take to get started. Candice Landau writes for Bplans that, "There are a number of ways you can do this, including performing general Google searches, going out and speaking to people already working in that industry, reading books by people from the industry, researching key people, reading relevant news sites and industry magazines and taking a class or two if this is possible.

Landau also suggests that if you don't have the time to thoroughly conduct research on your own you can turn to government departments and your local SBDC. This living document generally projects years ahead and outlines the route a company intends to take to grow revenues. When writing your business plan, make sure that it includes the following components;.

Writing a business plan may take you several days or weeks, depending on how comprehensive you want your plan to be, but you can actually set up your business in a just a couple of hours. Jeff Haden says that this is possible on Inc.