When following business advice, it’s very easy to think that you’re either in one of two states - a business owner, or not a business owner such as a freelancer or an employee. While this is technically true, it’s also the case that owning a business is not necessarily as easy as wishing to run one. There are many preliminary steps to getting there, and these are rarely highlighted for the newcomer or the budding entrepreneur hoping to define themselves anew.

It’s also important to note that these stepping stones are much more than simply coming up with a brand name, or designing your own logo in Photoshop, which anyone can do. What matters is laying the foundational firmament so strongly that as you move forward, designing and developing your business will be similar to building a strong wall brick by brick, perfectly laid in their perfect places.

In this post, we’ll determine what those stepping stones are, and how to get the best of them. With that in mind, please consider:

Gaining A Federal ID Tax Number

It’s important to obtain a federal tax ID number so you can pay your taxes, register your corporation, and of course, hire employees through the right employment contracts. Little measures like those not only provide the legal foundation and framework of curating your brand, but of keeping your accounting and tax contributions well-provisioned will be essential to the health and viability of your brand. It’s quite surprising how little this is mentioned, so make sure to get on that first of all.

Patenting Products Or Developing Services

Before you develop your products or develop your services, it’s important to know what unique value you have to offer, and how you can protect that. Filing patents with the help of a patent law attorney to make sure any inventions or particular unique offerings you have will remain yours for a time is essential, as is making sure your intellectual property is correctly protected so sensitive design or service planning documents remain yours is key. For that, practicing good cybersecurity habits can help you move forward more clearly, with a consistent self-protecting vision. This way, you can avoid another market entity from stealing your value.

Where Do You Fit In The Market?

It’s good to consider where you fit in the market, because if one hundred local businesses take your possible spot already, then you can pivot and try to bring something new. But this means more than just knowing what businesses surround you, but how they operate, how they differentiate in value, how they’re perceived with goodwill and public reviews, and how they’ve changed as the market moved. Not only can doing this research help you understand your future approach to the market, but will challenge you to try something new and more capable as time goes on. If you can focus on that, then you’ll build the foundations of a business that not only looks inward, but is informed by outward market forces. Without that, no business can justifiably pursue a position in the market.

With this advice, you’re sure to use those stepping stones with care, first by gaining a legal foothold, second by protecting your creativity, and third by determining your position in the market.