Talk to the Market

Although the market (your customers) should be figured out long before even choosing a name, now is the time to really start to think about how to talk to them.

Customers need to find out about you to buy what you've got!

Use the 80/20 rule. 80% of your business will come from 20% of your customers. So, determine who the 20% are, and those are your customers (Michael Sanderson, St. Mary's University).

What will impress and motivate them?

For my new business, I have to figure out if I need to educate, differentiate, or engage. Since OHJAY will be a service business that will have a lot of young clients, Facebook will definitely be a popular engagement tool, as well as Twitter to inform people of jobs available from one minute to the next. A website is critical; not that it's overly hard to set up a basic website. There are sites available online (e.g. "1and1") that offer templates to get started for only a small fee every month. This is much more cost effective than having to hire a web designer.