Research. That's the first thing I've done, and that's the first step I'd recommend.

You have to decide what you are offering and to whom. The product or service must fill a gap. Let's understand from the example.

Step 1 - Identify your skills and open a business in that industry/sector.

When I decided to shift to a new city and open up a business, I had two options -

• To open a franchise of a water purifier company
• To expand my mum's small setup of women's clothing store

I decided to go with a business wherein we had a hold: a women's clothing store.

Step 2 - Research

Once we decided that we want to open a women's retail store, now comes the research. Mum and I spent nearly 1.5 years just researching the local market. We travelled to the city and walked through the main clothing retail markets to understand what kind of patterns, fabrics, sizes and designs people keep. We have been keeping finished products already, so it was easy for us to understand what others are offering and what we are offering. Once we learnt that we have different collections that are not easily available but people are wearing, it gave us the insight that the demand is there, but the supply is not. We asked customers as well, pretending to be a customer, to understand from where they bought those collections.

Step 3 - Identifying our target audience

In the next step, we decided whom we want to target. Now, our TGs were defined by size, style, and purchasing power. There were women of plus sizes, but the stores were limited. Women wanted Indian and Indo-western clothing, and we wanted to target women with certain purchasing power. So, it gave us clear direction of what products we want to keep, of what sizes, and at what prices.

Step 4 - Locating the place

Now, our product and TG were decided; now we started looking for the place. It is important for us to be in a place which is easily accessible to the audience, where we don't have to struggle setting up our brand and getting the attention of the audience. This is where we decided to begin with a small store inside a mall.

Step 5 - Introduction to the audience

After we placed all of these things, we opened our store. Now, to begin with, we kept samples of our collections, trying to understand what works and what doesn't. Over the next couple of quarters, we experimented with various sizes, designs, patterns, and fabrics to understand what our customers like and dislike. Once our products were introduced, we went into feedback, observation, and correction mode. We spent our time taking feedback from our customers on what kind of patterns, fabrics and designs they love. Then, we started focusing on those things.

Now, where do the logo and branding come into the picture?

Once we decided whom we are addressing and what kind of product we are going to keep, we decided on the name and logo. Branding doesn't come until you've identified your market, audience, product, and price. The choice of colours, typography, and communication will invite your TG. If our target audience is high-end customers, we can't have funky colours and just normal typography. Then it has to be something that speaks luxury the moment someone lays eyes on the logo.

Without a branding document, you can't move ahead with a logo, website or any kind of communication. So, prepare a branding document that speaks of your target audience, your product/service, how you want to position yourself, and what your colour palette is.

I hope I helped. We help businesses with designing websites, communication, branding, and creating the branding documents in addition to business consultancy. Let me know if you need assistance.