Montana Business Startup Guides
Starting a Business in Lewistown, Montana
Thinking about starting a business in Lewistown, Montana? This step-by-step guide walks you through the major decisions you should consider before opening a new business in Lewistown.
Are You Ready for Entrepreneurship?
Before you get too far along in the process, assess your entrepreneurial instincts and capabilities.
Here are three things we recommend you do before you fully commit to starting a new business of your own.
- Reach out to other entrepreneurs in Lewistown. Listen closely to their experiences and see if you think you too can be successful.
- Peruse Should You Become an Entrepreneur?. This is one of our more popular articles for folks who want to go into business for themselves.
- Have a candid conversation with friends and family. 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.
Lewistown, Montana Demographic Information
Lewistown has an active business community that includes small businesses, mid-sized businesses and large businesses.
To give you a better feel for Lewistown demographics for small businesses, we have tabulated the small business sizes, based on number of employees, for business in Lewistown.
Businesses
As a new Lewistown entrepreneur, you may also be interested in the table below. It shows how many businesses there are in Lewistown 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 Lewistown Business?
We've created a useful website page for those who want to Buy a Business in Montana. Follow that link and you may find several good businesses for sale in Lewistown.
For anybody who wants to buy a business, we recommend reading this useful article: How to Buy a Business.
Company Formation in Lewistown, Montana
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.
When forming a company, you will pick from many company types, such as a traditional C-corporation, a Limited Liability Company (LLC), or an S-corporation.
Incorporation is a very common way to legally create a business entity. Of course, you have to decide which type of corporation to form and where to incorporate. Just because you are starting a business in Montana, you don't necessarily have to incorporate in Montana. In fact, you can incorporate wherever you want. However, if you do incorporate in another state, you'll have to register as a foreign corporation in your home state.
There's a lot to know about forming a company. We recommend you read some of the educational articles about company formation that are availabe on our site, such as Why Incorporate in Delaware. You may also want to seek the advice of an attorney. On a final note, since you will be starting a business in Lewistown, Montana, our web page covering Incorporating in Montana may be a useful resource if you decide to incorporate in Montana.
Raising Money for Your New Venture
Raising money to fund your new Lewistown business 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.
To learn about raising money, we recommend you read the fundraising articles on our site, such as Borrowing Money from Friends and Family.
For Lewistown entrepreneurs with great ambition but a shortage of investment capital, you'll want to take a look at our List of Montana Angel Investors and our List of Montana Venture Capital Firms.
Marketing Your New Venture
To grow your Lewistown business, you need a solid marketing plan.
There are myriad resources on this site to help you with your marketing plan. Advertising on Google is a good read to get your marketing thoughts flowing. That's just a sampling of the many useful articles we have on Marketing a Small Business.
How to Sell
Being able to sell is critical to your business success. Whether you are focused on selling local customers in Lewistown or are selling to customers throughout Montana, the United States or even the world, you have to be able to sell.
So what does it take to bring in more prospects and close more business? Let us help you refine your selling techniques through our many useful sales advice tips.
Why Salespeople Fail offers some helpful tips on how to sell. It's one of several good articles on our site regarding Entrepreneurial Selling.
Never Give Up
You have a dream -- starting a business in Lewistown. To achieve your dream, you have to persevere, even when the odds are against you.
Owning your own business will be a daunting task, but you can do it.
We are here to help Lewistown businesses to be successful. We want to be there for you to answer your business questions, whether you are a new Lewistown entrepreneur who is just getting started or you are already up and running with your new venture.
More Entrepreneurial Resources for Starting a Business in Lewistown, Montana
Here are more links that we believe will help you be successful in starting a business in Lewistown.
- Resources for Lewistown, Montana Entrepreneurs - Browse a variety of resources we've collected to assist Lewistown entrepreneurs.
- Montana Entrepreneurial Resources - We've gathered state-level entrepreneurial resources to help new entrepreneurs who are based in Montana.
- Montana Small Business Development Center - The Montana Small Business Development Centers focus on the creation, retention and expansion of Montana small businesses.
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