You might think that the hard part of building a business is setting up the legal documents, or building the product, or scheduling the workload. It’s not. It’s actually getting the customers.

Without customers you have no business. So I propose something: build your business from the front, backwards.

How does this work? Glad you asked.

First, you have to set up how people will learn about your business. The easiest way is online, but flyers and talking to friends about it helps too.

Once you get a few customers lined up, that’s when you create a way to get payments and deliver your first products or services.

After a while, that’s when you standardize your procedures and streamline so you can handle more customers. Slowly you are building a business from the front, where the customers come in, to the back, where you make money.

This might look odd at first, but it’s the best way to build your business.

To continue selling, you need revenue, which customers bring in. Without customers, you really can’t build your business. So you spend money on the things the customers want the most first.

For example, let’s say you want to create a food delivery service. What matters to customers is that the food is delivered quickly and is good quality.

So you get your first customers from the places nearest where you make the food. Once you’ve done this, you can then spend a bit more on branding to both drive sales and get a better experience for customers (like better takeout boxes).

Then you spend on faster transportation, which also lets you deliver to more places, and so on.

The best part about building a business this way is that you don’t overstretch your resources.

If you’re growing slowly, then you didn’t waste time getting loans and now trying to find ways to pay that off. If you’re growing quickly, it’s easier to get money since you’ve established the business already by showing your numbers.

Also, this way you’re focusing as much as possible on the customer right from the start and making him happy either by delivering excellent service, an unbeatable product or superior results.

Photo credit: Scott Waldron