You Don't Have to Figure It All Out Before You Start a Company
Here's the thing nobody tells you when you're starting a business: you don't have to reinvent the wheel.
I've worked with dozens of founders, from tech startups to real estate businesses to solo consultants, and the pattern is almost always the same. They spend weeks (sometimes months) building the perfect website, agonizing over their LLC structure, tweaking their logo, setting up systems they don't need yet… and they still haven't talked to a single potential customer.
That's the part that actually matters. And it's the part that gets pushed off the longest.
The uncomfortable question nobody wants to ask early enough
Before the website. Before the business cards. Before the perfect brand colors. You need to answer one question:
Will anyone actually pay for this?
You can't answer that question from behind your laptop. You answer it by talking to people. By having 20 awkward conversations. By sending the email that feels too early. By booking a discovery call before you feel ready.
I used to put client acquisition as Phase 3 or 4 in my onboarding process. Legal first, website second, systems third, then go find clients. It made logical sense. It was also completely wrong.
Now it's Phase 1. Everything else gets built around it.
You need critical minimums, not perfect systems
Starting a business is genuinely hard. But often we convince ourselves we need everything polished before we can start, and then we never start.
What you actually need are critical minimums:
Can someone find you online and see that you're a real business? Good enough.
Can you legally accept money? Good enough.
Can you send a proposal and track the work if someone says yes today? Good enough.
That's it. Everything else is iteration. You build, you learn from actual clients, you improve. The version of your business that works is never the one you imagined on day one. It's the one you shaped by doing the work and learning what people actually need.
I made a checklist
I put together a roadmap for every client starting a new business.
It's organized into four phases, but the order is intentional. Client acquisition comes first. Not because the legal and financial stuff doesn't matter, but because nothing matters if nobody wants what you're selling.
Each phase has a "Minimum Viable Checkpoint," basically the bare minimum you need to move forward. Hit the checkpoint, move on. Come back and polish later when you have revenue.
Here's what it covers:
Phase 1: Client Acquisition: messaging, outreach, networking, and getting to your first discovery call
Phase 2: Legal & Financial Foundation: the basics to operate and get paid
Phase 3: Digital Presence: website, social, SEO (good enough, not perfect)
Phase 4: Operations & Systems: CRM, templates, tools to manage the work
It also includes a weekly check-in template with my favorite question: Am I overthinking anything?
Download it. Cross out what doesn't apply. Start.
Download the New Business Onboarding Checklist
It's free. No email gate. As a fractional project manager, I know the importance of making progress, and moving forward, that's the whole point.
And if you get through it and realize you've got a business idea that's stuck, or you just want someone to look at your launch plan and tell you what's missing, that's what I do. Let's talk