Start-up businesses are famously risky endeavors. With so much riding on your first year, you really need to perform at your very best, optimizing your performance with the resources you have at your disposal, in order to make it out of the woods and into the world of established businesses. Many start-ups fail in their first year, and that’s often due to simple errors that are easily avoided given the right advice. While the guide below is by no means comprehensive, it does provide some insights about what to look out for in order not only to survive your first year in business – but to thrive in it.
Financials
The biggest flaw in start-up businesses is the financial management aspect. Plenty of start-ups fold in their first year because founders and CEOs were simply too ambitious to recognize that they might run into cash-flow issues if they fail to hit their monthly and quarterly targets.
The tips here are two-fold: you should always begin your start-up with some considerable funding behind you, in order to bolster your business, and allow for the right injection of capital at the right moments. Without that, you’re going to find your business under-funded, and therefore unable to perform at its cutting edge.
Secondly, you’re going to want to keep a close eye on your financial figures, forecasting for the road ahead, and checking in on how your cash-flow looks week after week. It’s difficult to overstate how important it is to be fully abreast of your financials. If you believe you don’t have the skills to properly consider your financial assets, consider bringing in an experienced financial expert – as outsourced help or as company CFO – to help you chart out your business’ future.
Get Online
Networking on a personal and a business level is an important stage for all start-ups. Remember that you’re entering a busy industry in which the major players are already well-known household names – and you’re essentially known by nobody. You need to make a charge at the market with this in mind. Get networking on a personal level as soon as you possibly can in order to build important business relationships for your company to lean on. LinkedIn is a great place to start doing this.
Meanwhile, and more importantly, you should already be making yourself known to consumers on the internet. You can do with through a variety of means. PWD are a company who’ll help you every step of the way in creating a website and optimizing its content to reach a wide audience. You should certainly outsource your digital marketing to begin with, as you’ll be busy managing a wide array of responsibilities connected to your business. With this particular responsibility in the hands of the experts, you’ll be better placed to concentrate on other matters as business steadily flows through your website.
Onboarding Staff
Your start-up’s success will rely as much on the business you manage to drum up in the first months as it does on the staff that help you do so. Without a dedicated and driven team, start-ups can get flabby and lazy – and that’s a sure way for them to fail. You need to be savvy in the way that you hire individuals to join your business.
According to Clay Burnett Group your start-up’s success will rely as much on the business you manage to drum up in the first months as it does on the staff that help you do so. Without a dedicated and driven team, start-ups can get flabby and lazy – and that’s a sure way for them to fail. You need to be savvy in the way that you hire individuals to join your business.
If you’re hiring web developer, especially remotely, coding interview tools for testing his programming knowledge will be a good solution.
Look out for sparkling CVs and resumes, and motivated individuals with a set of skills that your business is really lacking at present.
Be careful not to hire too many individuals, as yearly wage packets are an expensive overhead for start-up businesses. Instead, bring in the brightest and the best, such as recent graduates who’re ready for their first serious role in business. That way, you’ll find your workers bringing the best value to you and your developing company.
Scale When Ready
A huge step to take in your start-up’s early career is to scale it up. After your first year, for instance, you want to see your business working with a higher tier of customers, selling a far larger amount of units, and your works processing a higher volume of demand. All of this is only achieved through the investment and reinvestment of fund and profits into your business. Without steady growth, your business will always be volatile and fragile to small market fluctuations.
Law and Regulations
An important word on one of the more boring sides of business: regulatory compliance and lawful practice. It’s an absolute must for start-ups to take the necessary precautions before fully embarking upon their business journey, as a simple gap in their compliance can bring a company to its knees. Heavy fines and even prison sentences await those who fail to play by the rules.
One of the modern-day regulations that businesses must adapt to surrounds data and the privacy of the consumer data that your company handles. Misuse of data, leaks of data, or inappropriate levels of cybersecurity will put your whole project at risk. Read up on the regulations in place across global markets in order to avoid this unpleasant risk to businesses. A lawyer is also a great addition to your network in this regard – to help you keep on the right side of business law.
Goals and Objectives
Finally, it’s important to set ambitious goals and objectives for your business, if only to give you and your workers something to aim for in the weeks and months ahead. There’s a balance to be struck here. On the one hand, you must avoid over-straining your company and its resources, as its always sensible to have something remaining in the tank in case of business upsets and unwelcome bumps in the road. On the other hand, playing it steady, and taking no risks at all, is a sure way to make blunt your incision into the market that you’re looking to one day dominate.
A middle path – ensuring that you’re being responsibly ambitious – is perhaps the best way to mitigate the risks surrounding your future planning. With sensible but ambitious goals in place, your workers will all be on the same page regarding the direction and energy in your company.
These tips are arranged and outlined to help start-ups carefully plot their way through their first year in business, paving the way for success and longevity into the future.