How to Help Your Kids Start a Business in Cape Town

Starting a business is not for everyone. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Starting a small business in South Africa requires you to invest time, energy and patience.  But more than anything else a Start-up needs passion, commitment and a clear sense of purpose. If you have what it takes and are willing to do the difficult things, then you should start your own business.

South Africa is IRREGULAR among developing countries. It is both a developed country with good infrastructure and also a country with huge social and economic problems. There is a wide gulf between recipients of development aid on the one hand and skilled professionals on the other. So as a South African entrepreneur you’ve come up with a business idea and believe that you have found a gap in the market, the next question is how to start your own business? There are a number of processes that you need to go through to start your own business in South Africa. However, if you do your research and practice due diligence then it can actually be quite simple to start your own business. In this article I am going to share some tips on helping your kids start a business and the step you should follow.

1. Start with a Viable Idea

Start thinking about whether your core idea makes a viable business. How do you know that your idea make viable business, you don’t, you should always take a step back, try to be honest and real with yourself and ask these questions.

• Does anybody need (or want) your product or service? How bad is the need, or how much do they want it? Think about it in common sense terms. The intensive market research will follow
• Will they pay for it? And are they already paying for something else, do you think that they leave that service and become your customer, Think about it in your case.
• Is your strategy or plan going to work for everybody?

The answers to these questions may seem obvious, but the point of this exercise is to give yourself a reality check. Essentially, you’re asking whether there is a market for your product or service. If you’re laying out a lot of money, and especially if that’s somebody else’s money (like investors), it is good to do some background research.

2. Determine Ownership

There are no formulas for ownership, and it may seem awkward at first, but if you’re partnering with someone, it is s a thousand times easier and better to do it now than to wait until after the money starts flowing. Determine the percentage of ownership, who does what, whose idea it was and how much that matters. There are no formulas for ownership. The closest thing to it is money spent, especially if you add in time spent and work that into a money value. This helps the kids share learn to share responsibility.

3. Name the Business

Naming a business is more than including your name, not only coming up with the ideas, but also checking them for availability, and registering the name to make it legally yours. Many people misunderstand what you can and can’t do with names. You can waste a lot of time with those misunderstandings.

4. Think About The Initial Sales Forecast

Some people dread the forecasting, but your business might not succeed without it. How can you estimate expenses without knowing sales? How can you estimate your initial cash needs, as part of your starting costs, without knowing sales? It’s very important to think about and know the initial forecast.

5. Create an Initial Expense Budget

Like your sales forecast, lay out a spreadsheet with rows on the left, months along the columns and a sum at the bottom to come up with an initial expense budget. Think about rent, utilities, marketing costs, and payroll. Help your child determine what he or she might need to start the business and make a budget.

6. Estimate Starting Costs

You will have to start with the Expenses you’ll need before you start and the things you’ll need to have. Expenses are things like legal costs, fixing up the location, setting up your website and so on. Assets are the item you’re going to sell. The harder part is estimating how much money you need to have in the bank, to support the company through the normal drain period during the early low cash days. You have to lay this out month by month, comparing your sales to your expenses, watching the way the money goes in and out. Remember, in most business settings, you have to wait to get paid.

7. Plan Your Marketing Strategy

Think about the area where you will sell the most this is called target market, it allows you to target certain specific areas to do your business. Imagine a hypothetical, ideal customer. Determine his or her age, gender, job, and favorite media. It’s important to know your customer well. Think about your marketing strategy and implementation details. Take the time to go through a short but focused marketing plan to make sure you understand what it will take to market your business.

8. Start Building Your Website

In today’s world building a website is very important when it comes to starting a business, it helps you reach customers easily and it also makes thing simple for customers because they can simply go on the website a find out what type of product or service your offer and simply choose the best one for themselves. For most businesses, you can have a website built very quickly. Think about the basic elements of your website, and at least get a site up with basic information about you, your business, your products and your services.

9. Think about how you will Get Paid

Think about how your customers will pay you. If you’re going to be selling to consumers, then you probably want to establish a merchant account so you can accept credit cards. These days, you have the option of setting yourself up with some web stores like Amazon and eBay that can handle that part of it for you. If you’re selling to businesses, then think about invoices and credit policies for business customers. There’s no underestimating how important getting paid is.

10. Think About Your Business’ Location

Most people know they’re either going to work out of their home or they know where their office will be. They’re considering the right location, how it should look, where it should be, what else is nearby, and so on. Even if it is a home office, it is important to put your business in a location where things will run smoothly.

11. Get Funding

As a parent, when helping your child to start a business being one of their first investors is a good thing, it let the child know that you believe in them and it boosts their confidence, and also I advise that you loan the money to them so they get a more real experience. You can start by spending a few thousand rands you already have or as hard as raising more money from professional investors.

12. Start Your Business

Get right to it. It never hurts to try to follow these instructions listed above and I believe your new startup will takeoff smoothly.