Alabama Business Startup Guides
Start a Business in Birmingham, Alabama
Are you starting a business in Birmingham, Alabama? This article discusses the most important things to consider when opening a business in Birmingham.
Are You Ready for the Challenges of Being an Entrepreneur?
Before you get too far along in the process, consider your entrepreneurial instincts and capabilities.
Before you move forward with starting a business, be sure to do these three things:
- Talk to other entrepreneurs in Birmingham. Listen closely to their experiences and see if you think you too can be successful.
- We recommend reading Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneurs. For aspiring new entrepreneurs, it's a must read article.
- Seek the advice of somebody who knows you well. Ask them directly: Do I have what it takes to be an entrepreneur? Listen carefully to their answer, as they presumably know your strengths and weaknesses.
What Business Are You Starting?
An important decision is what kind of business you want to start. To help you decide on a business type, we encourage you to read Business Ideas That Don't Make Sense.
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 How to Start a Jalousies Business guide or our How to Start a Machinery Cleaning Business guide.
Don't forget that your new business will be in Birmingham. Some businesses will do better in Birmingham than others. Study Birmingham demographics and do a competitive analysis as part of your startup planning process.
Birmingham, Alabama Demographic Information
Birmingham has an active business community that includes small businesses, mid-sized businesses and large businesses.
To give you a better feel for Birmingham demographics for small businesses, we have tabulated the small business sizes, based on number of employees, for business in Birmingham.
Businesses
As a new Birmingham entrepreneur, you may also be interested in the table below. It shows how many businesses there are in Birmingham 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 Birmingham, Alabama
A critical step is ensuring that your business is formed as a legal entity that is separate from its owners. Among other things, forming a legal entity for the business limits your liabilities.
The entity you form can be a corporation, LLC, sole proprietorship, partnership or other structure.
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 Alabama, you don't necessarily have to incorporate in Alabama. In fact, you can incorporate in any state you would like to. 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 Company Formation. You should also consider getting professional assistance from your business lawyer. Finally, if you are starting a business in Birmingham, Alabama, our information on Incorporating in Alabama may be a useful resource if you decide to incorporate in Alabama.
The Role of the Business Plan
A business plan is essential in maximizing the prospects of your new company. Indeed, a business plan describes what you plan to do with the business and how you plan to do it. Not having a business plan is a recipe for disaster.
To learn more about business plans, read Business Plan Contests. You can also get face-to-face free consulting available from your local SCORE chapter in Alabama.
Marketing Your New Startup
To grow your Birmingham business, you'll need to have a good marketing plan.
We have some useful resources on this site for entrepreneurs who are working on marketing plans. Billboard Advertising Best Practices is a good read to get your marketing ideas flowing. There are many more articles on marketing on our site. Visit our Small Business Marketing resource section to see them all.
Never Give Up
You have a dream -- starting a business in Birmingham. To achieve your dream, you have to persevere, even when the odds are against you.
From this point on, you control your own destiny.
We are here to help Birmingham businesses to be successful. We believe entrepreneurship is an amazing engine for job creation in Birmingham, neighborhood development and overall economic health.
More Entrepreneurial Resources for Starting a Business in Birmingham, Alabama
Here are more links that we believe will help you be successful in starting a business in Birmingham.
- Resources for Birmingham, Alabama Entrepreneurs - Browse a variety of resources we've collected to assist Birmingham 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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