How to turn a good idea into a profitable small business

When it comes to opening a small business one of the best ideas that people have is turning their hobbies or pastimes into a small business. The reason that they tend to think of these things first is that it is something that they enjoy doing and would like to make money while enjoying the work. If you are one of those people who want to turn their idea into a small business then you need to take certain steps to ensure that your idea is turned into a profitable small business.

Difficulty rating: Easy to moderate

Step one:
The first thing that you are going to need to do is to determine if your idea has commercial viability, which is a way of asking if it will sell in the market place. Your family and friends might say what you do is great and that you should turn your hobby into a small business, but the question is will they actually pay you for what you are doing. The key to finding out if your hobby or pastime can be turned into a selling product is to do some market research. You are going to have to figure out if there is a market for your products, how you can actually reach that market and what you will need so you can mass produce your product.

Step two:
After you have figured out if there is a market for your product you are going to have to do some more market research to determine if there is enough long-term demand to make your business profitable. One thing you have to keep in mind is that if you are making or creating things to sell you are going to have to come up with new ideas to keep bringing your customers back because if you only have one item to offer your customers you are going to go out of business fast.

Step three:
The third thing you are going to have to do is to start acting like a business. Some people who try to turn their hobbies or pastimes into a profitable business end up failing because they have not completed this step and don't treat their business like a regular business, they are still stuck in the mood of it being a hobby. In order to act like a business you should take care of these tasks before doing anything else:
- Open a separate checking account for your business - this is the only way to get a clear picture of how your business is doing, as well as making you appear more professional to suppliers.
- Get a credit card for the business - even if you can't get one in the businesses name right away take a personal credit card and only use it for business purchases.
- Maintain complete and accurate records - you should set up a record-keeping system and use it from day one to track income and expenses. You can purchase bookkeeping or accounting software to help with your record keeping as well.
- Document your equipment purchases - this is important because if you can prove that you bought the equipment for your hobby and are now using it for your business you can most likely use it as a deduction on your company's first tax return.

But keep in mind that when you turn your hobbies or pastimes into a profitable business some things are going to change. It used to be that you were able do your hobby when ever you felt like it and all you had to worry about was pleasing yourself. But once you turn it into a business not only are you going to be doing your hobby, but you will have other things that you have to keep up on as well. Not to mention the fact that you have to make sure that you keep your customers pleased.