Minnesota Business Startup Guides
Starting a Business in Rochester, Minnesota
Thinking about starting a business in Rochester, Minnesota? This step-by-step guide walks you through the major decisions you should consider before opening a new business in Rochester.
What Business to Start
Choosing a business that is right for you is very important. To stir your creative juices on what kind of business to start, take a look at Good Business Ideas.
For in-depth how-to guides on how to start specific businesses, browse our Good Businesses to Start section of our site. For example, you might be interested in our Opening a Charitable & Nonprofit Fundraising Business guide or our Starting a Tennis Court Enclosures Business guide.
Don't forget that your new startup will be located in Rochester. Some businesses will do better in Rochester than others. Only by spending some time analyzing Rochester demographics can you decide if there will be strong demand for your business idea.
Rochester, Minnesota Demographic Information
Rochester has an active business community that includes small businesses, mid-sized businesses and large businesses.
To give you a better feel for Rochester demographics for small businesses, we have tabulated the small business sizes, based on number of employees, for business in Rochester.
Businesses
As a new Rochester entrepreneur, you may also be interested in the table below. It shows how many businesses there are in Rochester 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
Is Buying an Existing Rochester Business a Good Strategy?
If you have some capital to play with, you may want to Buy a Business in Minnesota. Follow that link and you might discover several good businesses for sale in Rochester.
If you are intent on buying a business, you may want to read this article: Buying a Business.
Startup Financing Basics
Raising money to fund your new Rochester business is very difficult due to the ongoing business credit crunch. To obtain business financing, you will need to hear a lot of rejections before you finally find a funding solution that works for you.
Take advantage of our many articles on raising money, such as Find Start-Up Capital.
For Rochester entrepreneurs with great ambition but a shortage of investment capital, check out our List of Minnesota Angel Investors and our List of Minnesota Venture Capital Firms.
Promoting Your New Company
To rise above the crowd in Rochester and advance your business, you'll need to have a good marketing plan.
We have some helpful resources on this site for entrepreneurs who are working on marketing plans. Newspaper Advertising Costs is an article that will stimulate a few thoughts on your marketing plan. That's just one of the many useful articles we have on Marketing a Small Business.
Bring in Revenues
Do you know how to sell? In order to attract customers to your new Rochester business, you need to focus on sales.
So what does it take to bring in more prospects and close more business? Fortunately, we've got plenty of good advice to help you improve your selling skills.
Anticipating Prospect Responses is a good article to read, one of dozens in the Selling for Entrepreneurs section of our site.
Next Steps
As an entrepreneur in Rochester, you won't be working for the boss anymore. You are the boss.
If you choose the right business and love what you do, you will greatly increase your odds of success.
This site is all about helping entrepreneurs in Rochester and elsewhere to achieve real success. We believe entrepreneurship is an amazing engine for job creation in Rochester, neighborhood development and overall economic health.
More Entrepreneurial Resources for Starting a Business in Rochester, Minnesota
Here are more links that we believe will help you be successful in starting a business in Rochester.
- Resources for Rochester, Minnesota Entrepreneurs - Browse a variety of resources we've collected to assist Rochester entrepreneurs.
- Minnesota Entrepreneurial Resources - We've gathered state-level entrepreneurial resources to help new entrepreneurs who are based in Minnesota.
- Minnesota Small Business Development Center - The Minnesota Small Business Development Centers provide no-cost, professional business consulting to Minnesota small businesses covering a variety of business needs.
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