Alabama Business Startup Guides
Start a Business in Foley, Alabama
Are you starting a business in Foley, Alabama? This article discusses the most important things to consider when opening a business in Foley.
Foley, Alabama Demographic Information
Foley has an active business community that includes small businesses, mid-sized businesses and large businesses.
To give you a better feel for Foley demographics for small businesses, we have tabulated the small business sizes, based on number of employees, for business in Foley.
Businesses
As a new Foley entrepreneur, you may also be interested in the table below. It shows how many businesses there are in Foley 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 Foley Business?
If you have some capital to play with, you may want to Buy a Business in Alabama. Follow that link and you may find several good businesses for sale in Foley.
Before buying a business, be sure to read this article: Buying a Business.
Selecting a Name For Your Business
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.
Numerous company naming issues are discussed in more detail in this article: Naming a Company.
As a final piece of advice, remember that because you are starting a business in Foley, it's critical that you ensure that no other Alabama company is using the business name you want to use.
Don't Skip the Business Plan
Having a business plan is vital in maximizing the prospects of your new company. Simply put, a business plan is a written description of the future you envision for your business. Failure to write a business plan makes you more prone to becoming a business failure statistic.
To learn more about business plans, read Business Plan Contests. You should also take advantage of free counseling sessions provided by your local SCORE chapter in Alabama.
Where to Get Money to Start a Company
Getting your Foley 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.
Take advantage of our many articles on raising capital, such as 504 Loans.
For Foley entrepreneurs on the hunt for startup funding, we have assembled a List of Alabama Angel Investors and our List of Alabama Venture Capital Firms.
Promoting Your New Company
Whether your goal is to attract Foley customers or you plan on selling elsewhere, you need a great marketing plan.
You can learn quite a bit about marketing on our site. Billboard Advertising Best Practices is an article that will stimulate a few thoughts on your marketing plan. There are many more articles on marketing on our site. Visit our Small Business Marketing resource section to see them all.
Next Steps
As an entrepreneur in Foley, you won't be working for the boss anymore. You are the boss.
From this point on, you control your own destiny.
This site is all about helping entrepreneurs in Foley and elsewhere to achieve real success. We believe entrepreneurship is an amazing engine for job creation in Foley, neighborhood development and overall economic health.
More Entrepreneurial Resources for Starting a Business in Foley, Alabama
Here are more links that we believe will help you be successful in starting a business in Foley.
- Resources for Foley, Alabama Entrepreneurs - Browse a variety of resources we've collected to assist Foley 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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