North Dakota Business Startup Guides
Starting a Business in Devils Lake, North Dakota
Thinking about starting a business in Devils Lake, North Dakota? This step-by-step guide walks you through the major decisions you should consider before opening a new business in Devils Lake.
Will You Be a Good Entrepreneur?
Most new businesses do not succeed, in part because the founder did not have the entrepreneurial skills and traits needed to succeed. So, before you start your business, consider all of the implications of being an entrepreneur.
Because entrepreneurship is not for everyone, we recommend you do the following to help you assess whether you should move forward with starting a business:
- Talk to other entrepreneurs in Devils Lake. They are usually very willing to share their insights on the ups and downs of being an entrepreneur.
- We recommend reading Should You Become an Entrepreneur?. For aspiring new entrepreneurs, it's a must read article.
- Have a candid conversation with friends and family. Others sometimes know you better than you know yourself.
Devils Lake, North Dakota Demographic Information
Devils Lake has an active business community that includes small businesses, mid-sized businesses and large businesses.
To give you a better feel for Devils Lake demographics for small businesses, we have tabulated the small business sizes, based on number of employees, for business in Devils Lake.
Businesses
As a new Devils Lake entrepreneur, you may also be interested in the table below. It shows how many businesses there are in Devils Lake 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 Devils Lake Business a Good Strategy?
An excellent way to get started in business is to Buy a Business in North Dakota. Follow that link and you may find several good businesses for sale in Devils Lake.
Before buying a business, be sure to read this article: How to Buy a Business.
Naming the Company
Making the right decision when choosing a company name is very important. There are many decisions you'll make now that you can change later, but changing a company name years down the road is not very easy. So, choose a good company name at the outset.
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.
To get up to speed on what makes for a good company name, we encourage you to read this useful article: Naming a Company.
As a final piece of advice, remember that because you are starting a business in Devils Lake, it's imperative that you check now that you will be the only North Dakota company using the business name you have chosen.
Forming a Company in Devils Lake, North Dakota
It's very important that your business is formed as a legal entity that is separate from its owners. 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.
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 North Dakota, you don't necessarily have to incorporate in North Dakota. In fact, you can incorporate in the state of your choosing. 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. We recommend you read some of the educational articles about company formation that are availabe on our site, such as Nevada Incorporation. You may also want to seek the advice of an lawyer. Finally, if you are starting a business in Devils Lake, North Dakota, our information on Incorporating in North Dakota may be a useful resource if you decide to incorporate in North Dakota.
Marketing Your New Venture
To grow your Devils Lake business, you need a excellent marketing plan.
You can learn quite a bit about marketing on our site. Exhibiting at Tradeshows 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 taste of the many useful articles we have on Marketing a Small Business.
Selling Tips
Mastering the art of selling is essential if you want your new Devils Lake business to do well.
Good selling involves demonstrating that your wares meet your customer's needs. Let us help you refine your selling techniques through our many useful sales advice tips.
Tips on Customer Referrals is a good article to read, one of dozens in the Selling for Entrepreneurs section of our site.
What's Next?
Most new Devils Lake 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 Devils Lake and elsewhere to achieve real success. 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 Devils Lake, North Dakota
Here are more links that we believe will help you be successful in starting a business in Devils Lake.
- Resources for Devils Lake, North Dakota Entrepreneurs - Browse a variety of resources we've collected to assist Devils Lake entrepreneurs.
- North Dakota Entrepreneurial Resources - We've gathered state-level entrepreneurial resources to help new entrepreneurs who are based in North Dakota.
- North Dakota Small Business Development Center - The North Dakota Small Business Development Center's mission is to provide high quality business assistance in the form of counseling, training, and research to existing and prospective North Dakota small businesses.
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