Alabama Business Startup Guides
Starting a Business in Huntsville, Alabama
Thinking about starting a business in Huntsville, Alabama? This step-by-step guide walks you through the major decisions you should consider before opening a new business in Huntsville.
Are You Sure You Want to Do This?
Most new businesses don't make it, in part because the founder did not have the tenacity and/or the skills to succeed. So, before jumping into the world of entrepreneurship, consider all of the implications of being an entrepreneur.
With so much at stake when you start a business, we strongly recommend you do the following before you proceed:
- Talk to other entrepreneurs in Huntsville. Ask them candidly what it's like to run a business.
- We recommend reading Should You Become an Entrepreneur?. For aspiring new entrepreneurs, it's a must read article.
- Have a candid conversation with friends and family. The people who know you best are often in the best position to tell you bluntly whether you will be a good entrepreneur.
Huntsville, Alabama Demographic Information
Huntsville has an active business community that includes small businesses, mid-sized businesses and large businesses.
To give you a better feel for Huntsville demographics for small businesses, we have tabulated the small business sizes, based on number of employees, for business in Huntsville.
Businesses
As a new Huntsville entrepreneur, you may also be interested in the table below. It shows how many businesses there are in Huntsville 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
Have You Considered Buying an Existing Huntsville Business?
We've created a useful website page for those who want to Buy a Business in Alabama. Follow that link and you might discover several good businesses for sale in Huntsville.
If you are serious about buying a business, you may want to read this article: Hold Harmless Agreements When Buying Businesses.
Naming the Business
A big decision when starting a company is choosing a company name. Believe it or not, choosing a good company name can be a big contributor to your business success.
Company names should be fun to say, and they should help people to understand what you do and how you differentiate yourself in the market.
For other considerations regarding naming a company, we recommend this article: Naming a Company.
On a final note, given that you are starting a business in Huntsville, it's imperative that you check now that no other Alabama company is using the business name you want to use.
Promoting Your New Company
To grow your Huntsville business, you'll need to have a good marketing plan.
You can learn all about marketing on our site. Music on Hold 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.
Advancing Your Entrepreneurial Skills
The best business owners recognize that what they know now may not be enough to ensure their future success.
With your business being located in Huntsville, Alabama, you will want to take advantage of the many programs available at nearby Alabama universities, colleges and community colleges. It's also worthwhile to see if there are any Huntsville networking organizations.
Some Interesting Huntsville Entrepreneurs
Here, we'll keep a running list of interviews we've had with Huntsville entrepreneurs.
Next Steps
Most new Huntsville businesses underestimate the number of challenges they will face.
Owning your own business will be a daunting task, but you can do it.
This site is all about helping entrepreneurs in Huntsville and elsewhere to achieve real success. We have a wealth of experience in business start-ups, financing, marketing, sales and more...and we've made all of our knowledge available to you.
More Entrepreneurial Resources for Starting a Business in Huntsville, Alabama
Here are more links that we believe will help you be successful in starting a business in Huntsville.
- Resources for Huntsville, Alabama Entrepreneurs - Browse a variety of resources we've collected to assist Huntsville entrepreneurs.
- Alabama Entrepreneurial Resources - We've gathered state-level entrepreneurial resources to help new entrepreneurs who are based in Alabama.
- Alabama Small Business Development Center - Alabama's Small Business Development Center (SBDC) counsels and trains business people in a wide variety of business topics and provides comprehensive information services and access to experts in many fields. Counseling is provided free of charge to all Alabama small business owners.
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