A lot of people ask me what the steps to starting a successful business are and I thought I’d try to articulate some of my thoughts here. Of course, this could end up going in to a lot of detail, so for the purposes of brevity and to make this information easy to consume, I’ve decided to split it up in to a number of posts.

In this initial post, I’ll focus on outlining the high-level ’steps’ and then go in to more detail on each one in subsequent posts. Hopefully at the end, I’ll have compiled a mini treatise that can be read in short spurts or all at once, depending on the reader’s time and of course willingness to invest that time to learn.

Keep in mind that I have a passion for food and technology…. after all, I’m a restaurateur and technologist. So my perspective is naturally slanted towards these areas. Therefore, what I have to say, may or may not be applicable to all businesses or all industries.

The keys to starting a successful business:

1. Identify a problem

2. Articulate a solution

3. Develop the solution

4. Test the solution

5. Sell the solution

6. Refine the solution

7. Enhance the solution

I’m sure most of this seems simple and of course logical… and if that’s what you think, you’re right. After all, this is not rocket science.

But the real work comes in the execution… and of course, the details of each one of these ’steps’.

Stay tuned as I try to dive deeper in to each one of these over the next little while.