Alaska Business Startup Guides
Opening a Business in Eagle River, Alaska
Contemplating starting a business in Eagle River, Alaska? We walk you through the process of opening a business in Eagle River.
Are You Sure You Want to Do This?
Most new businesses don't make it, in part because the founder did not have the entrepreneurial skills and traits needed to succeed. So, before jumping into the world of entrepreneurship, consider all of the implications of being an entrepreneur.
Because entrepreneurship is not for everyone, we recommend you do the following to help you assess whether you should move forward with starting a business:
- Talk to other entrepreneurs in Eagle River. Ask them candidly what it's like to run a business.
- We recommend reading Why Small Businesses Fail. For aspiring new entrepreneurs, it's a must read article.
- Get feedback from somebody whom you trust. The people who know you best are often in the best position to tell you bluntly whether you will be a good entrepreneur.
What Business to Start
There are many businesses that you can start. How do you know which type of business is right for you? To stir your creative juices on what kind of business to start, take a look at How to Evaluate a Business Idea.
To view an extensive list of business types, complete with startup instructions, spend some time in the Good Businesses to Start section of our site. For example, you might be interested in our Starting a Dance Club guide or our Starting a Tatoo Parlor guide.
Remember that you are starting a business in Eagle River. Some businesses will do better in Eagle River than others. Make sure you fully understand Eagle River demographics before you lock in on your business idea.
Eagle River, Alaska Demographic Information
Eagle River has an active business community that includes small businesses, mid-sized businesses and large businesses.
To give you a better feel for Eagle River demographics for small businesses, we have tabulated the small business sizes, based on number of employees, for business in Eagle River.
Businesses
As a new Eagle River entrepreneur, you may also be interested in the table below. It shows how many businesses there are in Eagle River for each business category. By looking at this chart, you can get a general sense for how much competition there is in the business niche that you are pursuing.
Businesses
Make Sure You Have a Business Plan
Having a business plan is critical in maximizing the prospects of your new company. Simply put, a business plan is a written description of the future you envision for your business. Starting a business without a business plan makes you more prone to becoming a business failure statistic.
If you want more information on writing business plans, we recommend reading Business Plan Contests. A great resource for business planning assistance is the free business counselors available to you through your local SCORE chapter in Alaska.
Where to Get Money to Start a Company
Getting your Eagle River business the capital it needs to succeed requires strong organization skills and perseverance. To obtain business financing, you will need to hear a lot of rejections before you finally find a funding solution that works for you.
Recognizing this challenge, this site contains dozens of articles on raising money, including one we recommend entitled Only Idiots Send Venture Capitalists Business Plans.
For Eagle River entrepreneurs with great ambition but a shortage of investment capital, check out our List of Alaska Angel Investors and our List of Alaska Venture Capital Firms.
Promoting Your New Company
To rise above the crowd in Eagle River and accelerate your business, you'll need to have a good marketing plan.
There are myriad resources on this site to help you with your marketing plan. PR Versus Advertising discusses marketing strategy and tactical marketing in a way that should get you thinking about how to creatively promote your business. That's just a sampling of the many useful articles we have on Marketing a Small Business.
Next Steps
Most new Eagle River businesses underestimate the number of challenges they will face.
From this point on, you control your own destiny.
This site is all about helping entrepreneurs in Eagle River and elsewhere to achieve real success. We believe entrepreneurship is an amazing engine for job creation in Eagle River, neighborhood development and overall economic health.
More Entrepreneurial Resources for Starting a Business in Eagle River, Alaska
Here are more links that we believe will help you be successful in starting a business in Eagle River.
- Resources for Eagle River, Alaska Entrepreneurs - Browse a variety of resources we've collected to assist Eagle River entrepreneurs.
- Alaska Entrepreneurial Resources - We've gathered state-level entrepreneurial resources to help new entrepreneurs who are based in Alaska.
- Alaska Small Business Development Center - The Alaska Small Business Development Center, which is hosted by the University of Alaska and funded in part by the U.S. Small Business Administration, has assisted businesses by providing free, confidential technical business assistance and low-cost business training in Alaska for twenty years.
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