Starting a Business: Must Visit Sites

Time is rather elusive today so I'm going to keep this short but sweet. Here is a listing of must visit sites if you're thinking of starting a business, if you're in the throes of starting a business or are going a little mad about starting a business.




• SBA, Small Business Administration
Whether you're interested in planning, starting, managing or even getting out of business, the SBA is the place to check.

• Entrepreneur's ® Starting a Business
Business plans, how-to guides, and success stories – it's all here

• AllBusiness
"The one-stop resource for growing businesses"

• The IRS Checklist for Starting a Business
The basic steps

• PowerHomeBiz
Specific to "starting, managing and growing a home business"

TradeMark Express Blog Schedule

A VIS (Very Important Step) for your New Business

starting a business * business startup * small business * home business * business links

Starting a Business:
Researching Your Industry

Using this post as inspiration, I want to dig a bit deeper into the concept of researching your intended industry.

Brad Sugars' article How to Research Your Market is a must read. Brad lists a number of ideas, including contacting business groups and universities.

One of the ideas I touched upon yesterday was researching your competition. But how does one even go about doing this? And how do you keep it all organized in such a way that you can actually analyze your results? I'm a big fan of tables – I use them constantly for TradeMark Express, be it for client bids or summarizing the week. They're easy to create, manage & alter.

I've created a template that can be viewed & printed here. I filled in the first table with TradeMark Express' information so you can get an idea of how to use this table. Here's a blank form. If you'd like me to send you this table via email, please contact me at Shannon at tmexpress dot com.

Find the holder of a domain address
Free digital library of Internet sites
Using the Web to Research Your Market – PowerHomeBiz

research your industry * research your market * research * competition * market research * industry research