Setting Up A Business In Nigeria: Step By Step Guide

A business plan is one of the most important ingredients when preparing the recipe for a successful business, Businesses start from ideas, but they do not just stop there. The idea has to transform into action to establish the foundation of a business and let it grow From there.

Every year, a lot of people take a leap of faith to quit their jobs and start a business. While many aspire to be entrepreneurs, few really understand what it takes, or know how to start a business. There are a lot of requirements that must be fulfilled, and steps that must be followed for you to successfully start and grow a business in Nigeria or anywhere else in the world.

In this post, we will highlight series of easy-to-follow steps that you need to successfully start your business and execute that amazing business idea Kindly read on.

Firstly: Having A Simple Great Business Ideas

Your first and most important task is to have the right business idea. Take your time to determine what you really want to do, if you can figure it out you will be able to put in the work to achieve it, Furthermore, you have to define your area of interest. In arriving at your business idea, ensure that the business would be solving a problem people experience everyday, involves a skill that you can easily hone or are already good at, and is something people are willing to pay for.

Secondly: Write A Business Plan

If you wish to start a company in Nigeria, you must define your goals and area of interest as well as draw a plan for it. Your goals are those things you wish to achieve through your company. We all know that every company is set up to affect lives and make money, but you must clearly define how you wish to achieve that. The next thing is to write a business plan.

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Your business plan will help you determine what key problem your business is going to solve, how it adds value to your target customer, the business lifespan, how you intend to generate revenues in the short term & subsequently profits on the long term, how you intend to achieve market penetration & growth, how you will raise startup capital, and a lot more. A comprehensive business plan will keep you focused on the goal and guide you towards achieving what your business has set out to become.

Thirdly: Choose A Location

After you have written a comprehensive and highly intuitive business plan, you must determine where your business will be located. Ideally, your business must be close to your target customers, not your competition. Where you choose to locate your business office, customer demographic, these all, must be decided. The location you choose must be around the people with the highest chances of paying for your products or services offers.

The location you choose is highly important and must be customer-friendly.

Fourth: Raise A Business Startup Capital

Before you start out your business, you must have a clearly defined means of how to financially run your day to day operations, acquire merchandise, promote your brand, and a lot more. These things require capital to be executed. There are various ways to raise startup capital for your business; ranging from investors, to personal finance, friends and family, and a lot more. Once you have a clear means to raise your business startup capital and have acquired a part of it, you can move on to the next step which is determining the kind of legal business structure you want to setup.

Fifth: Choose Your Legal Business Structure

Before you decide the legal business structure you want to setup, you need to know the various types, and how they could suit you.

If you are going to majorly be the only person in the business, a “sole proprietorship” model is what you should go for. You can register a “partnership” if you are going to have more than one partner in the business. This means that both partners are going to be liable to the business. If you want to separate your personal liability from your company’s liability, you will have to setup a “corporation”.

Understanding the legal structure that you want formed around your business, is important before you proceed to register the business with the appropriate government bodies.

Sixth: Register Your Business With The Government

This is one of the fundamental steps you must take if you wish to start a company in Nigeria so that your company is fully recognized by Nigerian laws. The Corporate Affairs Commissions (CAC) acts give the CAC exclusive reserve to register all companies in Nigeria. CAC acts say that you must register your business under it before it is recognized by Nigerian government as being different from you, the owner. If you are going to be registering a company, you will need to get an article of association. This usually contains a lot of information about your business. on how To register a limited liability company.

Seventh: Register With The Federal And State Tax Offices

After your company or business registration, you will have to register with the federal and state tax offices. When you register with the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), you will be provided with your Tax Identification number(TIN) which you will use for many other purposes like opening a bank account and a lot more.

Eight: Hire The Right Team

The next step is to hire the right employees to co-run your business. If you are starting a small business in Nigeria, you will mostly not need more than one employee to take off with. But no matter how many employees you need to work with, make sure they’re the smartest people you can find. This step is very important in your quest to start a company in Nigeria, People run processes; formulate programs, procedures and policies, and practically do everything that is done in companies.

Be sure to get experts to drive your company in the right direction. Employ experienced and trusted engineers, I.T. experts, accountants, cashiers, lawyers, mechanics, marketers, carpenters, cleaners, etc. The right people will in the long run determine the dimension your company will assume. Therefore, using the right people to drive the company is key.

If you are not so sure about who will do a great job, you can engage the services of recruitment agencies to get the best hands that you require to run the company. This way you will have the best hands to kick off your company with. Remember the people you employ depends largely on how much you have projected for staff salaries. Therefore, people are important consideration you have to take into account if you are thinking of how to start a company in Nigeria.

Nine: Marketing

Promoting your offerings and letting people know about the business is an essential requirement. Without compelling and targeted marketing strategies, a small business might not be able to perform at its best.

With these steps listed above you can start your small business and become successful, Wishing you all the very best.