California Business Startup Guides
Start a Business in Santa Ana, California
Are you starting a business in Santa Ana, California? This article discusses the most important things to consider when opening a business in Santa Ana.
What Business Are You Starting?
An important decision is what kind of business you want to start. 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 Opening an Auto Mufflers Business guide or our Opening a Motorcycle Consignment Business guide.
Remember that you are starting a business in Santa Ana. Think about what needs are currently being underserved in Santa Ana. Don't forget to review Santa Ana demographics to see if there's a market for what you want to sell.
Santa Ana, California Demographic Information
Santa Ana has an active business community that includes small businesses, mid-sized businesses and large businesses.
To give you a better feel for Santa Ana demographics for small businesses, we have tabulated the small business sizes, based on number of employees, for business in Santa Ana.
Businesses
As a new Santa Ana entrepreneur, you may also be interested in the table below. It shows how many businesses there are in Santa Ana 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
Picking a Company Name
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.
Pick a company name that isn't too generic. If you do a search engine search for your proposed name and a billion results come up, you may want to reconsider the name. It's much easier to come up in the search engines when your name is fairly unique.
Numerous company naming issues are discussed in more detail in this article: Branding Advice.
There's one other important factor when naming a business. Since you are starting a business in Santa Ana, it's critical that you ensure that you will be the only California company using the business name you have chosen.
Getting Money to Start a Business
Finding the funds to fuel the growth of your Santa Ana business requires strong organization skills and perseverance. The reality is that there is very little funding available for new small businesses, and you have to explore every possible alternative.
Take advantage of our many articles on raising capital, such as Bank Credit Lines.
For Santa Ana entrepreneurs with great ambition but a shortage of investment capital, we have assembled a List of California Angel Investors and our List of California Venture Capital Firms.
Marketing Your New Company
Whether your goal is to attract Santa Ana customers or you plan on selling elsewhere, you need a great marketing plan.
You can learn quite a bit about marketing on our site. Buying Radio Ads is an article that will generate a few thoughts on your marketing plan. That's just a sampling of the many useful articles we have on Marketing a Small Business.
The Art of Selling
Do you know how to sell? In order to attract customers to your new Santa Ana business, you need to focus on sales.
Good selling involves demonstrating that your wares meet your customer's needs. Fortunately, we've got plenty of good advice to help you improve your selling skills.
Anticipating Prospect Responses offers some helpful tips on how to sell. It's one of several good articles on our site regarding Entrepreneurial Selling.
What's Next?
As an entrepreneur in Santa Ana, you won't be working for the boss anymore. You are the boss.
Owning your own business will be a daunting task, but you can do it.
Our goal here is to promote the vitality and growth of small businesses in Santa Ana and throughout the United States . 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 Santa Ana, California
Here are more links that we believe will help you be successful in starting a business in Santa Ana.
- Resources for Santa Ana, California Entrepreneurs - Browse a variety of resources we've collected to assist Santa Ana entrepreneurs.
- California Entrepreneurial Resources - We've gathered state-level entrepreneurial resources to help new entrepreneurs who are based in California.
- Fresno, California Small Business Development Center - The UC Merced SBDC Regional Network assists Central California entrepreneurs and small business owners through counseling, training and business information.
- Los Angeles, California Small Business Development Center - The Los Angeles Regional Small Business Development Center Network (LA SBDC Network) is part of the national, U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) effort to provide free one-on-one customized consulting services and low-cost training workshops to growing businesses and start-up businesses.
- Sacramento, California Small Business Development Center - As Northern California continues to grow demographically and economically, the Northeastern California Small Business Development Center (NECSBDC) at CSU, Chico is committed to helping communities prepare and plan for future growth.
- San Diego, California Small Business Development Center - The Small Business Development Center (SBDC) at Southwestern College serves entrepreneurs and small businesses in San Diego and Imperial Counties. The SBDC provides no-cost business assistance to start-up & existing businesses.
- San Francisco, California Small Business Development Center - The Northern California Network of Small Business Development Centers helps individuals start, manage and grow their businesses.
- Orange County Small Business Development Center - The Orange County SBDC is a leader in providing consulting, training, and technical assistance to the small business community.
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