what is the first step in creating a business strategy?

The first step in creating a business strategy is to clearly define your mission, vision, and core values—what your business is about, where you want it to go, and what it stands for.

Quick Scoop

Before you run any numbers, draft plans, or brainstorm tactics, you need a north star. That’s what mission, vision, and values give you.

• Mission : Why your business exists and whom it serves (your fundamental purpose).

• Vision : The future you want to create—your desired market position and what success looks like in 3–5+ years.

• Values : The guiding principles that shape decisions, culture, and behavior inside the business.

Once these are written down in simple, concrete language, you can then set SMART goals, analyze your market, and choose how you’ll compete—but without this first step, every later decision risks pulling you in different directions.

A quick example

Imagine you’re starting a small design agency:

• Mission: “Help small businesses communicate clearly through clean, modern design.”
• Vision: “Within five years, be the go-to design partner for local tech startups.”
• Values: “Clarity, reliability, and long-term partnership.”

From this, the rest of your strategy—target clients, pricing, services, marketing channels—becomes much easier to design and keep consistent.

TL;DR: Start by writing a clear mission, vision, and set of values. Everything else in your business strategy should line up behind that foundation.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.