We’ve all read those fear-inducing facts about how 80% of startup businesses fail within the first two years. But while there is no denying how hard starting a business can be, it is not impossible. A lot of it is simply down to preparation, and ensuring you have everything in place to give your company the best chance of succeeding.
Below are a few things to consider before launching your business:
Money, Money, Money
This is the most obvious point to make when it comes to starting a business, but it is still worth mentioning, because money is the number one thing every startup needs in order to succeed. Raising money can be challenging, but there are different routes you can take. It could be government funding, spending your life savings, finding private investors, raising S-EIS funds or seeking out business loans. Different routes suit different types of businesses. What you will need though, is a business plan and a good understanding of how much you’ll need. This could be as little as thousands, or as much as millions, so save yourself a lot of hard work and pointless agony by doing the math early on.
Be Disciplined, Really Disciplined
This means across the board. When it comes to money, make sure you have a well-planned budget in place and make sure you stick to that budget; you spent hours scrutinizing over the budgets for a reason. The other important area of disciple worth noting is time. Don’t just say you’re going to work such and such hours. Plan out your time as thoroughly as possible; plan for each day, week and month if you can. Your business will demand a serious amount of your concentration and energy, and you don’t want to let all your efforts go to waste simply because you were negligent with your time. Saying that, a work-life balance is extremely important too.
Launch at the Right Time
Ensuring you release your business into the world at the perfect time is hard to do, and that is simply because so much can be outside of your control. The industry could hit a sudden low, the economy could crash, your competitors may find traction or indeed start struggling, or maybe unforeseen personal issues could arise. So many things can become a factor. The best thing you can do is make sure everything within your control is as ready as it can be and then watch the marketplace.
Know Your Marketing Options
These days, there are so many avenues to choose from. Once you have a website up and running, the world is your oyster and you can start getting the word out. You can blog, boost your SEO, harness the power of social media platforms, embark on email marketing strategies, send out press releases and more. If you can though, leave this part to the professionals. As a startup, money tends to be tight, but if you can pay a professional content marketing agency for example, then do; it will take the pressure of you and allow your time to be spent elsewhere.
As always, hope this helps you get your venture off to the right start.
