I want to build a startup company.

People often have lofty dreams of business grandeur, but no real understanding of how to achieve it. We see big businesses with their CEOs making more money than most of us have ever seen and we think that it all happened by magic.

Some of the most prominent people in business are the billionaires. Whether you started with inheritance like Donald Trump, or worked your way up from nothing like Michael Bloomberg – no matter – these are the people we aspire to be (monetarily speaking).

Where becoming a billionaire may be your life’s goal, there is one thing that you may find quite interesting about this very small percentage of the population. Even though there are only approximately 1,645 billionaires in the world 75% of those privileged individuals will tell you that they did not start out that way. Most billionaires were willing to do the work it took from their initial startup companies to be able to realize their dream. Only about 25% actually inherited their wealth.

How to Launch Your Startup Company

If you find yourself dreaming and wondering how to build your startup company, here are the steps you need to take:

1. Brainstorm

The human mind has an amazing capacity to come up with inventions that change the world. Inventions are not something that just happen however. Even though some ideas were brought forth successfully throughout initial idea, most require that you think through the idea thoroughly and also bounce around ideas through the process of brainstorming. One of the most effective barnstorming tools is simply writing your ideas down in a notebook. Expanding upon the ideas that you have in the notebook will give you a constant steam of other ideas where one or two will stand out among the others.

2. Assess Your Personal Finances

The beginning stages of your idea and startup company will come from your own ability to utilize your personal finances, aside from startup funding. People with a passion for an idea and a startup company are able to find the money where they need it. Even if the step requires that you take a step back and shave off things from your budget that are not essential you can find the money somewhere. Making sacrifices is often how many startups begin, but do not worry for a little discomfort because you can get all of those things back and many more when you make it big in the business world.

3. Set Goals

In life we often have goals and a plan for how we want things to progress. A startup business works much the same way. You have your idea and the desire to make it a reality, but you need a real business plan in place to keep you on track to your goals. A business plan will give your startup a road map to follow and allow you to have a realistic view of the potential of your company. You can project your overall sales within the first year of business. Sometimes your projected sales will be right on the mark while other times they may be a little behind or way ahead. There is however no reason to get discouraged if the business plan does not follow the exact path. It is after all a projection. There are far too many variables in business to be 100% accurate all of the time.

4. Attract Investors

The business world is all about the contacts that we are able to make. Keeping in touch with people from your past such as school or even past business ventures will enable you to gain access to the contacts that you need for investors into your company. Your personal finances can take you a long way, but if your goal is to one day be sitting on the throne of the billionaire market, you will need some investors to take a shine to your business venture. Finding the right investors will allow you to gain access to the capital you need to grow your personal business to unbelievable heights.

5. Branding

One of the first things people notice about a company is often their logo. This is how they market themselves to the general public. Marketing trends change over time, but having effective branding will give you quite an edge above the competition. Many times the investors that you have brought into the company will have a great amount of insight into the proper branding that you seek. Taking time to utilize the resources gained by your investor contacts will put you in touch with the right people that can help you market your brand appropriately. The general public often buys based solely on the brand name and having the proper branding in place can and will bring your company to the top.

These 5 steps are just an initial road map to get your startup off of the ground level. There are many strategies that startup owners will try to use to bring their startup company up much faster, but many of those strategies are short lived and can bring the company crashing down quickly. These steps will enable your business to grow as it should instead of in a short sighted fashion.