Your “business space” is not the physical location where you do your work. It’s the larger, figurative marketplace where your business exists in the world; the other people, both colleagues and competitors, who populate that space; and the innovators who keep it changing and developing. We’re talking about the people who work in your field. They are your people. They face challenges similar to the ones you’re facing. They may have found solutions they’re willing to share, or resources you just have to check out, or maybe they need help, just like you.

Seek them out so you can partner up, share ideas, commiserate, or pool resources. There’s power in numbers.

WHERE ARE YOUR PEOPLE?

ONCE YOU HAVE YOUR TRUSTED GROUP OF CONFIDANTES, your sounding board, you’ll have a handy cadre of people who can help you navigate the world where you will be selling. Sow how do you find them?

LOOK AROUND YOU. Do all the bakers you’ve met set up stalls at local farmers’ markets when they’re first starting out? Maybe this would be a good place for you to sell your artisanal biscuits. Look around at local art and craft fairs and see who is selling there. Look for ideas on how they set up their displays, how the best ones distinguish themselves from the masses, how you can learn from their best ideas. Don’t forget to ask your colleagues what they do to drum up business. They can share their mistakes and you can share yours. Maybe you can all help each other avoid pitfalls in the future.

GET ONLINE. Have a look in the online space. Some (or all) of your community may be doing business online. For example, fan-fiction writers are usually only found online, writing and sharing with an online community. Find out.

EVALUATE THE MARKET AROUND YOU CONSTANTLY. If the last three art fairs where you’ve set up shop to sell clay mugs are saturated with pottery like yours, it’s time to reassess. Does being in the company of similar startups give you a business boost because potential customers come to art fairs looking for pottery? Or are you noticing that people comparison-shop between you and your competitors three stalls over and you’re losing out on potential sales? Maybe you’ll need to do a trial run at a crafts fair where you’re the only potter and compare that with how much you sell when you’re one of many. Then decide on the best strategy.

SOMETIMES IT PAYS TO THINK LIKE A CONTRARIAN. If everyone’s selling pottery at craft fairs, be different. Either sell something else or sell your pottery somewhere else. Go where your product has a better chance of standing out, or come up with a new idea that others haven’t thought to try yet. Even if it’s unproven, you can be the first to prove the concept. Never be afraid to go where no one has gone before.

KNOW YOUR COMPETITION

ALWAYS BE INNOVATING. The best way to do that is by knowing what other businesses in your space are doing. We’re not telling you to look for ways to sabotage the other businesses in your field, but you do need to understand everything you can about what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. Sometimes this can be as easy as looking at their websites and simply observing. Do they use PayPal? Are they selling on Etsy? Do they blog every day or just once a week? Do they offer free samples or giveaways?

KEEP TRACK of this kind of information. List the companies you’re following and describe the categories you’re tracking. Maybe you’re watching to see how often they update their blog or social media content, what they sell and when they introduce new products, where they’re getting press coverage. Then spend some time thinking about how your business fits into this type of model. Does it make sense for you to be posting updates on social media daily? Should you display more photos than you have currently? If they’re doing something great, you can incorporate it into your business.

THE BIGGEST DILEMMA you’ll face when looking at your competitors is figuring out the balance between following along and finding your own path. If every event photographer whose work you’ve ever seen takes candid and posed photos, does it make sense for you to offer only candids? Customers may have come to expect both kinds of photos at their parties and may be disappointed if you take only candid shots that may not get four family members in the same photo. But if you’ve developed a signature style of candid photography that catches spontaneous moments better than others in the business, you’ll give yourself a unique selling point, a reason to choose you over the jack-of-all-trades photographers. See how clients react. Keep a constant eye on your competitors so you can decide whether to do the same thing they’re doing to stay current or whether you want to do things differently. There’s no right answer.

TAKE CHANCES. Remember, fortune favors the bold. But do take calculated risks, not reckless ones.

YOUR WORKSPACE

YOU NEED TO SET UP SHOP SOMEWHERE. At first it will probably be at your kitchen table, in the garage, or in the spare bedroom of your house. It doesn’t matter where your space is, but make sure it’s your own. That means it should be a space dedicated to starting and growing your business, even if it’s a single table in a corner where you can draw sketches and store supplies for your startup. Own that space, use it only for your business, and be protective of it. Don’t shove your homework to the side of your desk and call it an office. Sooner or later, that homework will creep back in and your office may end up under a pile of binders and your comparative lit paper. Maybe you can find a couple of file cabinets in the garage, lay a piece of plywood on top, and make yourself a nice flat workspace with storage underneath. As your venture grows, your workspace will grow to accommodate it.

BE DISCIPLINED about the work you do when you’re in your workspace—working at home takes focus. Set aside specific amounts of time each day to work on your business, like you’re making an appointment or scheduling a sports practice. Even if you can devote an hour a day to coming up with ideas and getting your venture up and running, you’ll find that in a short time, you’ll have made a lot of progress.

CHOOSE A SPACE that allows you to be creative and to focus. If you can position your desk so you can look out a window, that might help you conjure up ideas. Find a good desk lamp that gives you plenty of light. If you’re working on a computer, set up a separate folder for all work-related stuff. This will make life much easier later when it comes time to keep records, deal with money, and find what you need.

STOCK YOUR WORKSPACE with supplies and keep it organized. When you sit down to work, try not to get distracted by e-mails and posts from your friends. Sometimes it helps to shut down your e-mail account and turn off your phone while you’re working. It’s amazing how much more you can get done without those distractions.

SALES SPACE

If you aren’t using solely e-commerce to sell what your startup produces (e-commerce includes putting your books on Amazon and your music on iTunes), you may need an actual brick-and-mortar place for people to come and buy what you’re selling. If you’re in a service business, this can be an outgrowth of your workspace, such as a conference room down the hall where you can hold a meeting, or it can be outside your workspace, in a public working co-op or even a coffee place where you can find a quiet corner for a pitch. But if your startup is producing something customers want to see and touch and feel, you might need to give them a place to do that.

KEEP IT SIMPLE AT FIRST. Maybe there are local street fairs where you can apply to set up a booth, or the farmers’ market in your town may have room for you to set up shop on weekends. Remember that you can’t just show up. You’ll need a seller’s permit and advance permission to sell in an open venue, but that’s pretty easy to obtain. The laws vary from state to state, but generally selling requires you to complete an application and pay taxes on the taxable items you sell. Google “seller’s permit” for the rules where you live.

SET UP SHOP IN SOMEONE ELSE’S STORE. You don’t need to rent the entire place. You can ask the manager of a store that sells complementary items if they have a consignment program, which is a fancy way of saying they’ll let you put your furniture or T-shirts in their store for a while to see if anyone would like to buy them. And if someone does, the store will split the profits with you. Some stores split these profits 50-50, but others might want to take as much as 70% of the selling price. Don’t be afraid to negotiate, and make sure that you’re pricing your items appropriately so that selling on consignment is still a good deal for you. If they really like what you’re selling, they may offer to stock your goods on their shelves all the time.

A lot of small-business owners go with this tried-and-true method of finding places to sell: they go in person to the Whole Foods or the cute retail boutique down the road (remember that small-business owners often like to help other small-business owners) and ask if they’d like to carry their creations in their stores. Some may not have room and they’ll tell you to come back later. Others may say yes right away, or offer a trial for a month or so. If your products sell, it’s beneficial for those businesses as well—they’re always looking for great new merchandise to attract more customers.

SHARING SPACE

AS YOU GROW, or if yours is the type of business that requires big machines or lots of space, you may find you need production facilities, an industrial kitchen, or a place with multiple sewing machines.

LOOK AROUND AT THE SHOPS IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD and see who’s doing what. Do they have extra space? A desk in the back? Some equipment you could use? Some cities have organizations whose specific aim is to provide resources like screen-printing equipment or sewing machines to community members: do some research and see what might be available where you live. We’ve provided a handy guide in the appendix to organizations that might be able to provide this kind of help—or other support for young female entrepreneurs looking to get started with a business idea.

LOOK ON CRAIGSLIST and send out queries to your network to see who (or whose parent or friend) might have a space you can use for free (or in exchange for dog walking, babysitting, or something your business can provide). It may be that renting space is the best use of your dollars, and if so, go for it. But if you just need a place to get started, see if you can save on rental expenses until you have real revenues coming in—and you can spend that money on developing other aspects of your business.

TREND SPOTTING—YOU ARE POWERFUL

YOU KNOW WHO THEY ARE: the hip friends who always seem to spot trends first, to wear cool clothes before everyone else. Maybe you’re lucky enough to be one of them. Most of us are not trendsetters—but that doesn’t matter. Take note of which kids are the ones everyone looks to for fashion ideas—and study them! This doesn’t apply just to clothes: there are trendsetters all around you in technology, food, arts, community service, services—watch what they’re doing and use that to inspire your ideas.

GET INFORMATION FROM FORECASTS. This is much easier than it sounds. Researchers publish material online, and they send their information to newspapers and magazines. Trend forecasters want you to know they’re right on the money if they’ve predicted accurately, so they’ll put that information out there for you to find.

NITTY-GRITTY BUSINESS STUFF

AND HOW TO DEAL WITH IT

WHAT’S A DBA?

DBA stands for “doing business as,” and it means that you are doing business under whatever name you’ve chosen. You have to register that name with your city or state/province so they can make everything official.

TAXES, SHMAXES

Yes, you have to pay them. No, the process doesn’t have to cause a migraine. Once you are officially in business, the government will expect to hear from you. The good news is, when you’re first starting out, taxes probably won’t dent your profits very much. And until things get complex, you can likely file them yourself using a program like QuickBooks or TurboTax.

I’M NOT DRIVING, WHY DO I NEED A LICENSE?

Let the folks in your local government know who you are and what you’re doing. They won’t make life difficult for you, and they may even protect you. They need to know you’re out there once you’ve officially set up your business, which means you need to update them yearly with statements of information and reports. Good news is almost all of it can be done online.

IPO?

Yes, hopefully one day. But not now. An IPO (initial public offering) happens when your business has grown enough that other people want in. They’ll buy shares or tiny fractions of your business in exchange for giving you cash to grow even more. You’ll lose part of your ownership, and you’ll have other people holding you accountable for continued growth. It’s not for everyone, and it’s just one of many ways a business can grow.

THERE ARE SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES that will give you targeted research on a certain demographic, but there’s so much information out there for free, you should be able to get everything you need. Check out wgsn.tumblr.com, trendhunter.com, and psfk.com. Even the paid services often offer a free demo or trial period, so take advantage and get a little information. Down the road, when your concept has become a moneymaker, you may be in a position to pay for trend-spotting services. Make note of the ones that do a good job.

DON’T BE AFRAID TO TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS, and do what you know. If you would read a blog about medieval witches, chances are your friends would too—and maybe others. If your venture involves engineering, follow everything that’s happening at TechCrunch Disrupt and haunt the web for STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics) innovations.

REGISTERING A BUSINESS

MOST STATES OR PROVINCES HAVE A TAX EXEMPTION for businesses that earn less than a certain amount. California, for example, has a creative enterprises exemption if you earn less than a certain amount doing something creative. To access the rules for your state, go to the US Small Business Administration website at sba.gov and look at the business licensing and registration sections. While you’re on the site, do a little exploring. The SBA has lots of useful information for small businesses. In Canada, go to CanadaBusiness.ca.

ALWAYS BE LEARNING

OVERPREPARE. Be the best-educated person in the room. Successful entrepreneurs never stop learning. Bosses are eager to understand the world around them, the larger marketplace that their business is part of, and the people whose needs their businesses are fulfilling. That is called context. To establish context you need to bone up on what other people are doing in fields similar to yours. Learn about their pricing, their clients, their business model. Google them, ask people you know about them, bookmark their blogs, follow their posts. If you’re the kind of person who keeps all that information filed away in her head, go for it. If you like to make lists and use binders and tabs, keep track of all your data that way. If you’re a fan of spreadsheets, use them. Just make sure you’re compiling data whenever you can.

Say you’re starting a nonprofit theater company. The best information about how to do business will come from other theater companies, both for-profit and not-for-profit. Some may charge the going rate for tickets, or mount shows based on donations only. Others may limit their productions to a single one-act festival per year and spend the rest of their time offering improv classes because that’s the most lucrative model. If they’ve made mistakes along the way, learn from them. If they’re doing something exceptionally well, take note. Look at theater companies’ websites, visit their workspaces, see their productions, and interview the people running the show. Don’t be afraid to ask for information. People love to help, and remember that you’re all in the business because you love theater.

OF COURSE, EVERYTHING CHANGES BY THE MILLISECOND. Statistics that ring true today may be woefully out of date by next month. Stay on top of changes in your industry by remembering to check in periodically and do more research. Find out who the new kids on the block are. Who is doing something original? Maybe some business flamed out because of a bad strategy (none of our Bosses, of course). Stay current, and you’ll find yourself answering questions about your industry before anyone even has a chance to ask.

WRITE A PLAN. All that research will come in handy if and when you write a business plan. A business plan is an extremely useful document that outlines the nature of your business and your vision for it. Writing a business plan is a good idea for any would-be Boss, and a necessity when you’re looking to raise any money to further your venture. The more you know about other businesses in your field, the better job you can do of convincing investors that it makes sense to help you.