Alaska Business Startup Guides
Opening a Business in Tok, Alaska
Contemplating starting a business in Tok, Alaska? We walk you through the process of opening a business in Tok.
What Business to Start
Choosing a business that is right for you is very important. To help you decide on a business type, we encourage you to read 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 an Acupuncture and Chiropractor Practice guide or our Starting an Auto Gas Tanks Business guide.
Don't forget that your new startup will be located in Tok. If Tok already has plenty of the kind of business you want to start, you might want to change your plans. Make sure you fully understand Tok demographics before you lock in on your business idea.
Tok, Alaska Demographic Information
Tok has an active business community that includes small businesses, mid-sized businesses and large businesses.
To give you a better feel for Tok demographics for small businesses, we have tabulated the small business sizes, based on number of employees, for business in Tok.
Businesses
As a new Tok entrepreneur, you may also be interested in the table below. It shows how many businesses there are in Tok 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 Tok Business?
If you have some capital to play with, you may want to Buy a Business in Alaska. Follow that link and you may find several good businesses for sale in Tok.
If you are serious about buying a business, you may want to read this article: Hold Harmless Agreements When Buying Businesses.
Forming a Company in Tok, Alaska
It's very important that you choose the right legal structure for your new entity. Doing so will protect you from personal liability for business debts and obligations.
The entity you form can be a corporation, LLC, sole proprietorship, partnership or other structure.
Incorporation 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 Alaska, it doesn't mean you are required to incorporate in Alaska. In fact, you can incorporate wherever you want. For example, it's very popular to incorporate in Delaware, and incorporating in Nevada has become very trendy as well. Don't forget, though, that you will have to register as a foreign entity in all states that you do business in.
There are many nuances to forming a company. We recommend you read some of the educational articles about company formation that are availabe on our site, such as Pre-Incorporation Agreements. You may also want to seek the advice of an attorney. Finally, if you are starting a business in Tok, Alaska, our information on Incorporating in Alaska may be a useful resource if you decide to incorporate in Alaska.
The Role of the Business Plan
A business plan is critical in laying a solid foundation for your business success. Indeed, a business plan is a written description of the future you envision for your business. Not having 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 free business counselors available to you through your local SCORE chapter in Alaska.
Raising Capital for Your Venture
Getting your Tok business the capital it needs to succeed is not an easy task. 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 capital, such as 504 Loans.
For Tok entrepreneurs with great ambition but a shortage of investment capital, browse our List of Alaska Angel Investors and our List of Alaska Venture Capital Firms.
Marketing Your New Venture
To grow your Tok business, you'll need to have a good marketing plan.
You can learn quite a bit about marketing on our site. Billboard Advertising Best Practices 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.
Never Give Up
Most new Tok 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 Tok and elsewhere to achieve real success. We believe entrepreneurship is an amazing engine for job creation in Tok, neighborhood development and overall economic health.
More Entrepreneurial Resources for Starting a Business in Tok, Alaska
Here are more links that we believe will help you be successful in starting a business in Tok.
- Resources for Tok, Alaska Entrepreneurs - Browse a variety of resources we've collected to assist Tok 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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