First steps to starting a business

First stepsResearch your market
Make sure you pick an area of focus early on. It's important to distinguish your brand from the hordes of other design agencies out there.

Assess the competition.
Look at all the other design agencies in your area. How do their compare to your proposition? Can you learn anything from what they are doing? 

Create a beautiful website that showcases your ability and range
Remember, your website is your company's window to the world. Include some examples of your work, full contact details and, if you have time, a blog to talk about some of the design issues and trends that you care about. Customers will not trust you to design their magazine or build their website if yours is a disaster.

Open an account with a stock image library.
Subscriptions start from £100 a month while image download fees start at a couple of quid and go up to £75 for a single image.

Get on Twitter.
It's a great way to canvas for work, show off existing projects, network with other designers and read up on new design innovations.

Get a Dropbox account.
It makes sharing large images and files a doddle. Remember, most email systems can't digest incoming messages with over 10MB attached.

Do a stint on 99Designs to build a portfolio of work.
It's a great way to get exposure to a wide selection of clients and could provide future contact fodder.

Draft a client contract that you can tweak for each project.
Start out doing things properly and you'll avoid costly mistakes and client tussles along the way. There's some great tips here from Stuff & Nonsense founder Andy Clarke.