Setting up a business takes much longer than you originally expect

For the last few months I have been posting on my efforts to start a small business from the idea generation phase through the starting it and hopefully seeing it become a viable business.

In my last post on this topic I mentioned that I had two business ideas in mind and that one was quite practical from a small business point of view and I hoped to have a preliminary website up and running within a few weeks from that post.

As it turns out I have discovered that setting up a small business takes a lot more effort and is much harder than you originally expect when you have the idea.  This was for several reasons which include

1. When you have no experience in website design doing it yourself feels like a mammoth task
• I know hiring someone else to do it for me would be the easy solution however I would like to prove there is demand for my product before spending large amounts of money on it
• It is easy to set up a website that looks like it was built at home but learning enough html / css to make it look decent takes time and effort
2. There are things  you need to do which you do not even consider at the start
• One such example is a logo for your website
• For anyone looking to make their own logo I suggest Paint.net.  It is a great, free tool with lots of free instructional material
• Also I do not recommend using those free logo maker websites.  They do not look great and often they wont give it to you for free unless you register with them
3. The time taken to get your product perfect will always be longer than you expect
• If there is one thing I learned from my investment banking days is that perfection in the product your provide is the best reason for people to come back to you
• Unfortunately perfection or as close as you can get to it takes time
• I could have had my website going more than a week ago if I was willing to compromise on the standard of my product however I want to build a good reputation so am willing to put the time and effort into it

I will do an expanded post on this at a later point but I have discovered through this process that it really is possible to develop an online presence on a shoestring.  I am more than willing to invest more money into the project but I want to make sure there is a market from what I'm providing before I do so. 

I will keep updating this thread and hopefully soon I will be able to announce the launch of my small business (my new target is to launch by mid August - my original target was first week in July)