The prospect of starting your first business can be pretty intimidating. Yes, you are a smart cookie, with passion and tenacity in spades, but this is a new challenge, and that’s always tricky. Here’s a basic roadmap to help you think about what to do, and when. UpStart can help at each point, with private coaching, and blog posts with tips and inspiration.

1. Come up with an idea, and vet it. Make sure the idea is a good fit for your goals, interests, skills, and resources.  Get preliminary feedback to make sure it solves an important problem for a specific group of customers, and that there’s a reasonable path to profitability.
2. Get a partner, and structure a deal. Find out if partnering is right for you, learn how to identify the right partner, and iron out terms that ensure fairness and flexibility in good times and bad.
3. Create a business plan. Don’t go too crazy, though. Plan just enough to answer the questions why, what, who and how. Create a simple presentation that makes it easy to get feedback. Run some basic numbers to understand how much money and time you’ll need, how and when you’ll turn a profit, and whether the return is worth the risk.
4. Gather enough resources to build a minimum viable product – a stripped down version of your product that will let you see whether your sweet spot of potential customers will purchase. At this point you’ll probably want to bootstrap, and get any necessary capital your savings, side-gigs, or loans or investments from fiends and family.
5. Set up your company. Form a legal entity so you can protect your personal assets, and get a bank account. Formalize your partnership, which should probably include a partner pre-nup.
6. Get to know your customers. Get out of the building and talk to your customers, and to intermediaries that know your customers well (e.g. retail buyers). Break your customers down into segments, and understand the needs and behaviors of each group.
7. Develop a brand. Establish what you want to stand for, and how you want to be viewed by your customers. Use the results to inform your name, what you sell, and how you will price and position your products.
8. Design and develop your minimum viable product. Save the bells and whistles for later (or never).
9. Customer discovery. When the product is ready to ship, forget the splashy launch. Instead, develop and test a few basic hypotheses about which groups of customers will buy, and how you will reach and sell to them. Track your results, and watch and listen to customers as they move through your marketing funnel. Use your findings to tweek or “pivot” your features, pricing, positioning and messaging.
10. Raise capital if you need it. Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of doing this far earlier. Instead, go through the steps above, so you’ll have tangible results, and a better sense of what you need, when, for what, and where it will get you.

Got other steps or ideas? Don’t be shy…