The next step: starting your own business.

• Author: Buconjic, Nevin
• Position: Guest Columnist

I often meet people who are intrigued by the idea of starting their own business, but are intimidated by the fact that they have no experience or simply don't know where to begin.

What I say to these people is, "Start slow, focus on your idea, and ask for help when you need it."

In my last article I talked about all of the free resources available to entrepreneurs in Northern Ontario. I encourage everyone to take advantage of the programs, funding and business advisory services available in their communities.

The act of starting a business use to be inherently more risky than it is today. With the Internet and social media, today's entrepreneurs have access to knowledge, tools and resources that never existed before.

Where market research may have once involved going to the library to look up company (competitor) information, or annual reports, or conducting a survey via mail or the telephone, today budding entrepreneurs can access incredible volumes of information, news and data as they research their ideas and potential markets from the aomfort of their home or on their mobile device.

Also available is access to customers, friends and colleagues who can provide feedback in realtime. Online survey tools such as Survey Monkey allow users to effortlessly capture both quantitative and qualitative data and valuable customer feedback--and the results are compiled into fancy graphs and charts for you.

Social media provides unprecedented access to millions of people, celebrities, friends, customers and even competitors. Social media offers a powerful platform for building brand awareness and crafting both creative and inexpensive marketing.

Through the Internet, one can launch a new business practically overnight. Online tools like Wix (www.wix.com) allow you to build a website, and even take online payments in a matter of hours.

For literally a few hundred dollars you can launch a new online business and test your business concept in the real world. No more spending hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars to launch a new business that may fail in the end.

Now don't get me wrong. I am not suggesting that entrepreneurs skip the whole research component of their business concept, or fail to crunch the numbers to see if their idea is feasible. But just as times have changed, full-blown business plans are also becoming less popular--in favour of faster, more valuable tools such as one-page business plans, or a business...