With the thousands of businesses available to choose from, it is critically important that you conduct a self-analysis before you proceed. Unless you are absolutely sure of what your strengths, weaknesses, likes, desires, skills, etc. are, you’re traveling down the road without any clue where you’re going when choosing an at home based business. Once you understand who you are, deciding what the right business might be will greatly increase your chances of success. Your personality and skills understood, the following are some of essential steps you need to take before starting an at home based business.Conduct a Market analysis: Understand that you really do not have a business until you are able to sell a product or service. The first essential step is to research your potential market. Is there demand for what you are offering? Are there enough customers demanding your product or service to support your business? Is it a national or local market? Who are and can you define your ideal customers? Not knowing the answers to these questions will create a huge roadblock to success. This is a major reason why startups have such a high failure rate in their first year. Don’t find out the hard way that there is not enough demand for your product or service to capture.What’s Your Money Situation: Although there are many at home based businesses to require very little capital to get going, you can’t start a business without at least some capital. Determine how much you’ve got, what you will need and how you plan on obtaining it. Even if you’ve go enough capital to launch, you are still going to need to write a comprehensive business plan, if for no other reason than to help you understand your roadmap to success. If you don’t plan to win, you plan to fail. This will help you understand the costs associated with your business, how much money you’ll need and where it may come from.Hire a Good Business Attorney and Accountant: Many start-ups figure they’ll save money and skip this step, but take it from me; a good attorney is worth their weight in gold. At a minimum, you’ll want to hire an attorney experienced with new businesses to help you get started. A good attorney will help you structure your business in a way that will be most advantageous to you.An accountant will work in conjunction with your attorney and be instrumental in determining the best form of ownership and must be well versed in home business startups. A good accountant will help you establish record keeping procedures, bookkeeping, and is critically important for tax planning.Decide on a Business Structure: Sole proprietorship, partnership, “C” corp., “S” corp. or an LLC are your choices. Personal liability, taxes, paperwork and regulations will vary greatly within each of these legal business structures. Your attorney and accountant should be great resources in deciding what is best for you.What are You Going to Call Your Business: Obviously your business name is how you’re going to be known to the world and it will say a lot about your company. Choose a name that best describes your company in a few words. It should be easy to remember, pronounce and spell. It should be catchy. Consider how it will translate to a Internet domain name should also be considered. Keep in mind that you will need to do some investigating to insure that your name is as unique as you can make it and understand what your Internet domain name options are.Make Sure You Get Legal: A business license is a must but you may need to get additional licenses depending on the type of business and what the local laws require. Make sure you are in compliance with all local and state laws where your home based business is located. The zoning laws and any HOA rules and regulations must be thoroughly understood. It would be a shame if you’re shut down because this step wasn’t adhered to.These are just some of the highlights of the many important areas that need to be addressed if you truly want to put to odds of success in your favor when launching an at home based business. Checking off these will put you in a much more confident, business-ready position. But don’t stop here. The resources are endless on the Internet but can many times be overwhelming. That’s why we’ve developed an ‘at home based business’ step-by-step roadmap to success.