Starting a business: advice for disabled people

Introduction

Starting a business can present a great opportunity for many people with disabilities.

It can help you achieve your career aspirations and goals, and provide greater work flexibility and financial stability.

This guide offers resources to help you start and grow your own business. It considers the impact of self-employment on disability benefits and specialist support, and suggests ways of overcoming barriers you may encounter when starting up your business.

The basics of starting a business

When starting up a new business, you need to consider a number of factors to ensure the best chance of success.

As well as your product or service, you will need to think about what you will call your business, what sort of structure it will have and how you are going to run it. You should also think about how you are going to attract customers and where the money will come from for setting up while the business finds its feet.

Find out what to do before you start your business – Opens in a new window.

Your business plan

Planning and thinking about your business is a necessary process to undertake before, during and after you start.

The headings in a business plan can be simply thought of as a checklist of questions you need to ask to reassure yourself that your venture will work. Writing the plan down is just as important because it helps to clarify your thinking and demonstrates your commitment to move forward. It also identifies where you intend to get to and how you intend to get there.

Find out what to include in your business plan. 

What are your start up options?

Before you start trading there are several important decisions to be made about your start-up business.

Find out your different options when starting up – Opens in a new window.

Tax and legal issues for start-ups

Once you have decided to start a new business, you need to make sure that you have all of the legal formalities in place.

The following material on this site can help:

Finding and keeping your customers

When you start up your new business or become self employed, you will need to have a clear understanding of what an ideal or typical customer looks like.

Find out how to find and keep your customers.

Read More: nibusinessinfo.co.uk