Pennsylvania Business Startup Guides
Start a Business in Scranton, Pennsylvania
Are you starting a business in Scranton, Pennsylvania? This article discusses the most important things to consider when opening a business in Scranton.
What Business Are You Starting?
An important decision is what kind of business you want to start. We recommend that you read Good Business Ideas.
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 Starting an Airline Flight Information Business guide or our Opening a Motion Picture Film Archives Business guide.
Don't forget that your new business will be in Scranton. Some businesses will do better in Scranton than others. Only by spending some time analyzing Scranton demographics can you decide if there will be strong demand for your business idea.
Scranton, Pennsylvania Demographic Information
Scranton has an active business community that includes small businesses, mid-sized businesses and large businesses.
To give you a better feel for Scranton demographics for small businesses, we have tabulated the small business sizes, based on number of employees, for business in Scranton.
Businesses
As a new Scranton entrepreneur, you may also be interested in the table below. It shows how many businesses there are in Scranton 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
What About Franchising Opportunities?
Browse the Yellow Pages for Scranton and you may be surprised to see how many franchises there are in the area. Would going with a franchise be a good idea for you?
Most business experts recommend that you evaluate the possibility of your buying a franchise opportunity. We have many articles on franchises, such as Growth Trends in Franchising. Gain a solid understanding of franchising by scanning all of our Articles on Franchising.
To learn about specific franchise opportunities, check out our Franchise Directory.
Representative franchise opportunities include VendMasters and Geeks On Call. Alternatively, you can browse franchise categories, such as Training and Education Franchises and Cell Phone Franchises.
Note on Scranton Franchise Opportunities: To find out if a franchise you are interested in is available in Scranton, you will need to get in direct contact with the franchisor.
Naming the 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.
Companies like Starbucks, Apple, Target, Microsoft and Intuit all have strong company names that are easy to remember and have become well-loved brands. Wouldn't it be nice if your new company name got on a similar track?
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 planning on starting a business in Scranton, it's imperative that you check now that no other Pennsylvania company is using the business name you want to use.
Raising Capital for Your Venture
Getting your Scranton business the capital it needs to succeed is not an easy task. The reality is that there is very little funding available for new small businesses, and you have to explore every possible alternative.
To learn about raising money, we recommend you read the fundraising articles on our site, such as Getting a Small Business Loan.
For Scranton entrepreneurs on the hunt for startup funding, you'll want to take a look at our List of Pennsylvania Angel Investors and our List of Pennsylvania Venture Capital Firms.
Marketing Your New Venture
To rise above the crowd in Scranton and build your business, having an excellent marketing plan is fundamental to your succeeding.
There are myriad resources on this site to help you with your marketing plan. Conducting Sweepstakes and Contests discusses marketing strategy and tactical marketing in a way that should get you thinking about how to creatively promote your business. There are many more articles on marketing on our site. Visit our Small Business Marketing resource section to see them all.
Never Give Up
Most new Scranton businesses underestimate the number of challenges they will face.
From this point on, you control your own destiny.
We are here to help Scranton businesses to be successful. We believe entrepreneurship is an amazing engine for job creation in Scranton, neighborhood development and overall economic health.
More Entrepreneurial Resources for Starting a Business in Scranton, Pennsylvania
Here are more links that we believe will help you be successful in starting a business in Scranton.
- Resources for Scranton, Pennsylvania Entrepreneurs - Browse a variety of resources we've collected to assist Scranton entrepreneurs.
- Pennsylvania Entrepreneurial Resources - We've gathered state-level entrepreneurial resources to help new entrepreneurs who are based in Pennsylvania.
- Pennsylvania Small Business Development Center - Pennsylvania SBDCs help aspiring entrepreneurs turn ideas into businesses, help small firms expand, and provide the information every business person needs to make critical decisions. There is no charge for their assistance and their free help can make the difference between business success and failure.
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