Texas Business Startup Guides
Start a Business in Southlake, Texas
Are you starting a business in Southlake, Texas? This article discusses the most important things to consider when opening a business in Southlake.
What Type of Business Should You 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 Business Ideas That Don't Make Sense.
For step-by-step instructions on starting a variety of business types, visit the Good Businesses to Start section of our site. For example, you might be interested in our How to Start a Flight Instruction Business guide or our Starting a Swimming Pools Business guide.
Don't forget that you are starting a business in Southlake. Some businesses will do better in Southlake than others. A critical consideration is whether Southlake demographics mesh well with your startup concept.
Southlake, Texas Demographic Information
Southlake has an active business community that includes small businesses, mid-sized businesses and large businesses.
To give you a better feel for Southlake demographics for small businesses, we have tabulated the small business sizes, based on number of employees, for business in Southlake.
Businesses
As a new Southlake entrepreneur, you may also be interested in the table below. It shows how many businesses there are in Southlake 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
Forming a Company in Southlake, Texas
It's very important that you are forming a legal entity that operates independently from you. Doing so will shield you from personal liability for business debts and obligations.
The entity you form can be a traditional C-corporation, a Limited Liability Company (LLC), or an S-corporation.
Incorporating is a very popular way to form a business. Of course, you have to decide which type of corporation to form and where to incorporate. If you are starting a business in Texas, you don't necessarily have to incorporate in Texas. In fact, you can incorporate in any state you would like to. However, if you do incorporate in another state, you'll have to register as a foreign corporation in your home state.
There are many nuances to forming a company. To learn the basics of company formation, browse articles on our site, such as How to Incorporate. You may also want to seek the advice of an lawyer. Finally, if you are starting a business in Southlake, Texas, our information on Incorporating in Texas may be a useful resource if you decide to incorporate in Texas.
Don't Forget to Create a Business Plan
A business plan is essential to the health of your new business. Indeed, a business plan is a written description of the future you envision for your business. Starting a business without a business plan is a recipe for disaster.
To learn more about business plans, read Business Plan Contests. A great resource for business planning assistance is the face-to-face free consulting available from your local SCORE chapter in Texas.
Startup Financing Basics
Getting your Southlake business the capital it needs to succeed is not an easy task. Bootstrapping, which means growing the business without outside funding, is the best alternative, but that's not a viable option for many startup plans.
Fortunately, this site contains dozens of articles on raising money, including one we recommend entitled 504 Loans.
For Southlake entrepreneurs who need startup capital, check out our List of Texas Angel Investors and our List of Texas Venture Capital Firms.
Marketing Your New Business
To grow your Southlake business, having an excellent marketing plan is fundamental to your business achieving its goals.
We have some helpful resources on this site for entrepreneurs who are working on marketing plans. Facebook 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.
What's Next?
Most new Southlake businesses underestimate the number of challenges they will face.
Owning your own business will be a daunting task, but you can do it.
We are here to help Southlake businesses to be successful. 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 Southlake, Texas
Here are more links that we believe will help you be successful in starting a business in Southlake.
- Resources for Southlake, Texas Entrepreneurs - Browse a variety of resources we've collected to assist Southlake entrepreneurs.
- Texas Entrepreneurial Resources - We've gathered state-level entrepreneurial resources to help new entrepreneurs who are based in Texas.
- Houston, Texas Small Business Development Center - Serving 32 counties in Southeast Texas through 14 business consulting and training centers, the Small Business Development Center Network contributes to the growth and prosperity of the Texas Gulf Coast communities.
- North Texas Small Business Development Center - The NTSBDC Network promotes small business success by providing management education.
- Northwest Texas Small Business Development Center - The Northwest Texas Small Business Development Center was established with Texas Tech University in 1986. This regional program serves over ninety thousand square miles including ninety-five counties with a population base of approximately 1.8 million people. This region is serviced by six centers located in Lubbock, Amarillo, Midland/Odessa, Abilene, Stephenville, and Wichita Falls.
- South-West Texas Border�SBDC Network Texas Small Business Development Center - The South-West Texas Border Small Business Development Center (SBDC) provides consulting and technical assistance to the small business community.
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