Starting a business: advice for people with a disability

When starting up a new business, you need to consider a number of factors to ensure the best chance of success.

As well as your product or service, you will need to think about:

• your business name - see choose the right name for your business
• your business structure - see legal structures for businesses - an overview
• your marketing strategy and how you will attract customers - see create your marketing strategy
• how much money you need and how you will finance your business - see business financing options - an overview

For further information see step-by-step guide to starting a business.

Your business plan

Planning and thinking about your business is a necessary process to undertake before, during and after you start.

The headings in a business plan can be simply thought of as a checklist of questions you need to ask to reassure yourself that your venture will work. Writing the plan down is just as important because it helps to clarify your thinking and demonstrates your commitment to move forward. It also identifies where you intend to get to and how you intend to get there - see write a business plan: step-by-step.

Tax and legal issues for start-ups

Once you have decided to start a new business, you need to make sure that you have all of the legal formalities in place.

The following guidance can help:

• legal structures for businesses - an overview
• get started with business taxes

Finding and keeping your customers

When you start up your new business or become self-employed, you will need to have a clear understanding of what an ideal or typical customer looks like - see market research and market reports.