Open a Start-Up

Start a Start-Up

Last year, I started my own business Hemlig AI and fortunately, we successfully got some investors who have interest in our products. Apart from that, we also sell our plans to preserve privacy and earn some money in 2024. I would say it is a result of multiple collaborations with my business partner and my VP. Hence, I would like to give some pieces of my advice on how we can start a small start-up, particularly for businesses related to techniques such as machine learning and computer science.

It is not a easy job to do this bunch of stuff. I think there are three major things to consider. First, it is important to understand how we can convert an idea into a business. For this part, I received a lot from the course APS 1088 at University of Toronto. The instructor is Steve Treiber and the course name is Business Planning and Execution for Canadian Entrepreneurs. If you are fortunate to have the opportunity to take this course. It is recommended to have a try. The second thing one needs to consider is building up a team. I would give some introduction about how I established my team .In the last, some processes need to be done before you really start a business. I can give some links to some third parties who can handle this stuff.

Prepare the Business

Before you start your business, you should have a good idea. By meaning a good idea, it means that the idea should be different from the most common things on the market. The difference should not be so big nor so small. This sentence seems not to provide much information. What I want really to say is that this idea should focus on a problem which troubles the most people while no other competitors have better solutions. Therefore, the most common way to generate such an idea is to convert a research work into a start-up business.

Market Research

The very first thing is to consider market research. My business is related to providing solutions for privacy-preserving deployment and inference of large language models. The major thing to consider is how the market will expand in the coming several years. Around this, one needs to think about how they can make money and how they can beat their competitors and get money. We need to have a very clear understanding of competitors and ways to make money. Hence, the business owner should be very clear about the product and service, understanding the channel to advertise and sell products.

Value Proposition Canvas

Once one figures out the market research, the next thing is to design the value proposition canvas (VPC). VPC can be one of the most important things for the business owner to get clear understanding of the customer segments, knowing what they want and figuring out how the business can help them. Therefore, the first step is to figure out the customer segment. Next, the owner needs to identify one value proposition for each customer segment. For each customer segment, the owner needs to understand how the product can make customers willing to invest more money and how the product and service can cure the trouble.

Final Business Plan

Though it is called a final business plan, it is in fact the start of the business. In the final business plan, one needs to consider pretty much things. But there is only one major objective, making the people who read it feel satisfied. For example, after investors and shareholders read the plan, they feel that their money will get doubled, tripled, or even more in the future. After the employees and the business founders read it, they have abundant confidence in the future and feel highly motivated.

As a result, the final business plan needs to give a brief landscape of the company and how the company will develop in the future. Besides the introduction, one also needs to talk about cash flow in the next three years. The flow needs to be based on some proper assumptions related to the cost and earnings of the company in the future. It needs to consider the fact of getting new employees and sharing money with shareholders each year. The risks and potential losses should be considered. The solution needs to be planned out in advance. With all of these, the owner can start to figure out building up the founder team.

Building up the Team

To build a team, the owner usually needs to think about three things: technique, money, and all other things. So technically speaking, you only need three people including yourself. A person who can handle bascially everthing, usually a full-stack engineer is a must, especially in the modern era. Even if the CEO himself/herself is savvy in technique or the first responsibility for the preliminary research, one still needs a helper on the technique. Different viewpoints on the same problem can help the technique develop. The second thing is money. The CEO can find a friend or an investor or even a family. The only thing to keep in mind is that the person who shares the business with you must be someone you can ever trust. The third is all the other things. Usually, the CEO can handle these if the company has just started, from management to accountant. However, if necessary, hiring someone who is familiar with the operation of the company as a VP can be helpful. We can usually see this character as COO.

Set Up

To set up a company in Canada, there are a lot of documentary things to go through. A good recommendation is finding an agency. I personally recommend Incorporation Pro and they can basically complete everything for you. In Canada, you can open a federal corporation or an Ontario corporation. A person needs to follow stricter regulations if he plans on opening a federal one. Hence, I choose the second option. Usually, CRA Business number, Tax ID, and CRA/WCB registrations are must. WSIB is required if the company has employees.

Apart from that, the final last important thing is to open the payment. One needs to go to a bank and open a business account. The business account is separate from the personal account as you can view a corporation has a complete individual along with each natural person. A lot of banks have pretty good plans for e-commerce. In the modern world, it is a good idea to have e-payment and online transactions. Stripe is a helpful platform. They probably need a transaction fee. But, Stripe is indeed a helpful website to manage typically online transactions and credit card transactions. It can also easily manage the subscription easily with easy-to-use APIs.