Lilacs From Dead Land: Starting Your Own Business Post-Pandemic

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December 9, 2021 Business

The coronavirus pandemic will go down as the generation-defining disaster of our time.

While safety precautions have begun to ebb as the widespread proliferation of vaccines makes it slightly easier for us to return to a pre-pandemic normal, the gestation of new variants means that COVID will likely be with us for a long time. Stand-up comics label this the “most boring apocalypse ever,” as the pandemic didn’t bring with it hordes of the walking dead or Mad Max-esqué road battles. Yet, the pandemic hasn’t exactly been doing its work in the shadows, killing hundreds of thousands of people in the US alone and forcing businesses to shift gears abruptly to avoid extinction.

Nobody really knows the full extent of the effect the pandemic will have on our society, as every single aspect of how we conduct our business daily has shifted to accommodate pandemic-living, but one thing is for certain: the lower to middle classes have gained a measure of class consciousness, and are now free to pursue other career opportunities that weren’t there pre-pandemic.

Whether the catalyst was thousands of employees being cut loose when the pandemic hit, or thousands more being forced to stay in those jobs and work amongst the virus-ridden public, thousands of employees are quitting their day jobs and going to work for themselves. In a remote-work-based environment where big-box retailers and major corporations are struggling more than ever, there are now vacancies in the market that savvy entrepreneurs are seeking to fill. If you are one of these intrepid self-starters, or if the idea of going to work for yourself sounds better than making minimum wage at a Mcdonald’s, you may not know how to go about establishing the solid foundation needed to ensure your business’s long-term success.

For you, and for others like you who want to make something good out of this whole mess, here are a few tips for growing a profitable start-up.

Find Your Niche

The foundation of any successful start-up is understanding where they fit into the market and what kind of services they can offer that others can’t to stay competitive. While this may call back to late-night episodes of Shark Tank where entrepreneurs came up with gag-gift products that few would actually pay for, you want to think bigger. With the pandemic forcing many businesses to make quick (and often ineffective) switches to remote platforms, you may want to start there. How can your business make life easier for your customers while the pandemic is still raging? And how will your pandemic survive if the COVID variants force another shutdown?

A quick tip: don’t trade so much on the small-business image, essentially guilting customers into supporting you. Some will care that you’re not a mega-corporation, but most won’t, especially if your prices aren’t competitive. While some customers have principles they live and die by, most care about how much is left in their wallet when they leave you; Remember that, and set prices accordingly.

Fill Your Own Open Positions

Starting your own business will likely require you to put on lots of hats, from CEO to accountant to salesperson. If you don’t have the know-how to fill these roles, but you also don’t have room in the budget to hire someone else, you may want to consider taking online courses to enrich yourself and be your own best associate. This will cut down on the number of people on your payroll, leaving you more money to invest in the business, and some courses also give you the necessary licenses to practice as an accountant, making you multitalented as a CEO.

Build Your Brand, and Aggressively Market it

Before building an aggressive social media campaign (which you should absolutely do), you will need to settle on an idea of what your brand is and what you stand for. The idea is that you want to be able to clearly communicate your brand’s appeal to the customer in as little as one sentence. Think popular slogans like “save money, live better” or “15 minutes can save you 15 percent or more on insurance.”

Once you’ve condensed your brand into a talking point, take to the streets of social media; Diversify your platform by posting on all the major social media channels, from Facebook to TikTok, and create content that reflects your brand’s values. Be sure to keep your content innovative and interesting, as anything else will be written off as just an advertisement. You want to sneak the message in like dog medicine in cheese, with the consumer swallowing both without realizing it.

This is not all you will need to do to get your start-up off the ground. But with these tips, you’ll establish a foundation to do much, much more, and grow a successful business out of this disaster like Lilacs in the Waste Land.