7 key ideas for the cultural entrepreneur

What are your weaknesses and strengths? What budget do you have available? What salary would you like to allocate to yourself? How do you envision your business? These are some of the questions you must ask yourself to start. Before presenting yourself to your audience, you must analyze yourself and your situation.

The answers will help you find your best allies, understand your situation, and determine whether you are ready. Above all, you will have a clearer vision of building a business that aligns with your vital needs. Once you have researched the landscape, it will be easier for you to use your strengths as a tool and seek solutions to any concerns you may have.

Once you understand your possibilities, you need to study your audience: what they like, what they're like, what motivates them, and what their needs are. Keep in mind that to achieve a profitable business, it's as essential for the idea to align with the actual market needs.

When analyzing the audience and the sector, studying the competition is essential. Knowing them is crucial to differentiate yourself. There is a lot of offer in the cultural world, so you'll need to present something new or focus on needs and market sectors your competitors aren't covering.

It may seem obvious, but many entrepreneurs don't set well-defined objectives or concrete goals. Define a goal, the more precise and more specific, the better. These goals should include all areas related to your brand: how much you want to earn, how you want your business to be, your relationship with customers, your values or your brand identity.

Once the objectives are set, you need to draw up a plan to help you achieve them. Break it down into small tasks that you can check off your list. Note down the pros and cons of each stage and look for solutions to possible difficulties.

Although many entrepreneurs want to start by creating a logo on the first day, we recommend following all the previous steps so that your image has a solid conceptual foundation.

Your brand's logo will only be the tip of the iceberg of all the work behind it. For the designer's work to be well-founded and convey what your brand needs, prior analysis is required. Trust a professional and let them design your corporate identity. Good branding with an attractive image to support it will be the first thing the customer sees (and first impressions are significant!).

At this point, your brand already has a solid identity that you can defend. In the previous step, you have probably been able to define many aspects of brand communication to apply from now on.
Create a communication plan, select the appropriate social networks for your product and audience, and maintain a communicative tone in line with your project's personality. All these aspects should be included in your Brand Manual and/or communication protocol.
The relationship with the public should be constant and personalized. Good communication with the customer adds many points and offers a tremendous competitive advantage. This is precisely one of the weak points of many cultural companies, so a good communication plan can help you differentiate yourself from your competition.

At the internal communication level, creating a healthy and debate-driven environment is very positive for the brand and helps all team members be involved in achieving common goals.

Set goals for your company's different management levels. In the commercial part, for example, initially, there may be more expenses than benefits, but that's not necessarily a bad sign.
We invite you to set goals for 1 year and 5 years ahead and review them periodically (it could be every 4 months, for example). Some of these goals will change along the way, but in any case, it's a technique of great utility to have a clear vision of the desired evolution and to stay focused.

Starting is complicated. We offer you a few options for sources of income for a cultural company that you can consider.

• Launch a digital fundraising campaign or a crowdfunding campaign
• Apply for a small loan from the bank or a private institution
• Seek local investors
• Turn to a business incubator
• Present your idea to friends and family (although you know what they say, don't mix business with personal relationships)
• Get strategic partners
• Propose barter arrangements: for example, offer your design services if someone lets you use their office

We have an article dedicated entirely to cultural financing if you want to learn more.

Entrepreneurship is synonymous with motivation, flexibility, and challenges. Not all moments will be positive, but you will undoubtedly embark on a growth and continuous learning journey.
At Misterio Studio, we offer design, communication, and dissemination services specialized in culture to help clients like you throughout this process. Are you up for it?