Starting a business is a dream for many people, but it’s no easy task. The challenge of getting a new company off the ground is even more significant when you want to launch from home. In a time when remote work and the work-from-home (WFH) lifestyle have grown in popularity, starting a new home business based on remote work can be a smart move. In recent surveys, more than 40% of people who had transitioned to working remote said they would prefer a permanent shift to remote work.
Beginning with a solid idea and developing an actionable business plan are critical first steps for taking advantage of this opportunity. However, you will need to start structuring the framework to support your operations as you move forward. That means finding individuals with the skills and expertise you need to expand your capabilities and acquiring the tools of the trade that will enable your successful operation. What are some of these important tools?
Meeting the Basics to Support Your New Company
As you set out to establish a presence for your business, the appropriate investments in the earliest stages will make your later efforts much simpler. Let’s look at a few of the most important acquisitions and investments you should make to set the stage for later growth and successful work. You will likely need most or all of the following:
- Financial and accounting software for managing your books and staying on top of your numbers.
- Time management and tracking tools, especially as you begin to onboard additional staff members.
- Communication tools for staying in touch with your team and coordinating their efforts.
- Payment processing software, which is especially important for budding ecommerce companies.
- A robust and optimized website with a distinct domain name that will make it easier for future customers to find and remember you online.
With these tools in place and ready to support your work, you can “hit the ground running” and give your company the best chance at success. As the business begins to sustain itself as an actual, functional entity, you can start focusing on opening the door to a new growth stage. How do you succeed at guiding yourself to this next level? As you grow, so too will your need to reassess the tools you use, upgrading when necessary and incorporating new opportunities as needs demand. What do you need to know about preparing yourself for these next steps?
Sustaining a Growing Business: The Keys to Survival
As your business begins to take off, it becomes even more critical to keep a close watch on your finances and the efforts you expend to bring in new business. Managing cash flow and monitoring expenses are more manageable with the appropriate accounting software, while platforms that enable customer relationship management help you identify valuable opportunities for generating revenue. Throughout all this, you must maintain a commitment to producing the quality outcomes and reliable results that your clients or consumers come to expect.
Achieving that goal requires a more inward focus than an outward perspective. You must look not just to exterior opportunities for growth but also into the functioning of your business itself to see what requires refinement. As a home-based business that likely relies on help from other employees who also work from home, communication is perhaps the most vital element that deserves your attention at this stage of your company’s life.
Without the opportunity to gather in person and communicate face-to-face, you must put a stronger emphasis on fostering that kind of environment through software.
Communication Is the Key: Fostering Collaboration in Your Home Business
How do you create the lines of communication that you need to assure success for remotely-based startups? That’s the million-dollar question. Tools for video conferencing, such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams, have become an integral part of the new remote/WFH environment, and their meteoric rise is likely to continue. Apps built for managing teamwork, from Basecamp to Trello and beyond, keep everyone up to date on expectations, milestones, and deadlines. What about collaboration on actual work, though?
That’s where it becomes essential to base your efforts on a platform proven to be excellent for a wide variety of purposes and already enabled for collaboration. When it comes to document-based workflows, such as creating new sales brochures or promotional materials, few digital formats offer the same level of versatility and reliability as PDF.
PDF files display accurately no matter the system that loads them. They also come ready for security enhancements, such as passwords, that help you protect your business secrets. Perhaps most importantly, though, choosing advanced and modern PDF software opens the door to real-time document collaboration between your employees.
Much like how cloud document services work, the right PDF program lets users connected to your business network work on documents together in real time. Collaboration becomes dramatically easier when employees can make notes, suggest edits, and mark up documents with the changes reflected instantly in front of them. Combined with video conferencing or VoIP audio calling, it can create a new and exciting environment for working together without needing physical office space.
The PDF helps remote startups communicate with clients and other businesses, too. Support for modern digital signing tools such as DocuSign means you can gather signatures when necessary in seconds and minutes rather than hours or days with other methods. Say goodbye to unreliable faxes and slow mail service when you can instead shift to a digital document environment.
Assembling Your Toolkit to Equip Your Business for Success
As you put the pieces together to pilot your business towards greater things, don’t lose sight of the most important aspects of all: communication and collaboration. Staying connected with your teams by working in collaborative formats such as PDF means a steady flow of information and the opportunity for a diverse group to produce innovative results. By choosing the right software to work with and collaborate on PDFs and incorporating it into your overall approach to doing business, you can build towards better results from the strongest possible foundation.
