Starting a business doesn’t need to take weeks or months. In this guide from the Leesburg Area Chamber of Commerce, we’ve laid out all the essential tasks involved in establishing your own company in just eight hours. Here’s how to set in motion a game-changing venture using just a single working day.

9:00 - 10:00 - Determine Finances

When starting a new business, the most important deciding factor should always be your finances. This relates to how much capital is available to you, what resources you already own, how much you can afford to budget on a monthly basis, and how much in personal funds you possess to cushion the blow if things don’t go to plan. Use the first hour of the day to take stock of existing assets, software subscriptions, revenue streams, and savings.

10:00 - 12:00 - Business Ideas

Once you’ve established a clear budget and taken stock of your available resources, it’s time to assess your ideas for businesses. Depending on how much you have to invest, how well you understand the market, and your existing skill set, some ideas are going to stand out over others. Use this time in the morning to carry out some preliminary research, evaluate competitors, and ascertain whether there is existing demand for your hypothetical product or service.

12:00 - 1:00 - Establish the Business

If you’re set on a particular idea, you can then begin to strategize how to establish the foundations of the business itself. A good place to start is with structure, which can have some bearing on the running of operations. A limited liability company (LLC), for example, can provide reduced personal liability, tax advantages, and less paperwork. Starting an S corp in Florida can also be advantageous if you want reduced self-employment tax rates, the benefit of pass-through taxation, and the option to claim tax deductions on company losses. Different states have different regulations around forming these entities. A formation service can help you to navigate forming an LLC or S corp in your state while avoiding hefty lawyer fees.

1:00 - 2:00 - Financial Tools and Considerations

You may have established how much money is available to you but you may not have worked out how to allocate it. Take the afternoon to work out how and where you plan to distribute your capital. You can also use this period to identify the right accounting software that will allow you to better organize your funds and establish an invoicing process. The right cloud-based invoicing system will allow customers the convenience of paying online, give you alerts the moment customers view and pay their balances, and offer scheduled invoices for recurring payments.

2:00 - 4:00 - Finding Customers

Marketing your services and establishing a secure client base is one of the major challenges faced by small businesses. Take two hours to build the framework of a marketing strategy, build your customer profiles, carry out a competitor analysis, and build a process that will allow you to establish leads and target your key demographics. You may also want to use this time to build a social media plan, thinking about which channels are most suitable for your company and how you might want to structure your content.

4:00 - 5:00 - Collaborating

Trying to build a successful business on your own is an impossible task and at some point, you’ll have to bring on board assistance from outside the company. Fortunately, there are plenty of freelancer platforms that allow you to easily and affordably collaborate online with experts from every field. If you choose to outsource some aspects of your business, find ways to make communication with them simpler. Learn just one of many free PDF merger tools so you are comfortable with creating and combining files to make it easier to keep track of important documents you have shared.

Get Your Business Up and Running

If you use your time wisely, there’s no reason that establishing a new business has to be a drawn-out process. With the right strategy, you can quickly and effectively build your own company with strength to last. Develop the foundations, such as your finances and business structure, and then turn towards attracting customers. And take advantage of any free tools that can make marketing and communication more streamlined. Being strategic about these steps will get your business up and running quickly.