Starting up a business can be extremely challenging in any climate. Around 50% of businesses fail in their first year. The odds stay pretty rough for the first three years too, so you’ll want to do all you can to ensure you survive during that time. Doing is the main, ensuring your business survives and driving it forward to success, but you’ll also have to avoid getting into trouble too. There are a lot of common pitfalls to watch out for. You might have considered some, and that’s okay. Some can be industry specific, others can affect all businesses of any kind and size. The trick is to look ahead and anticipate these pitfalls to crop up. Even if they don’t, being prepared wouldn’t have gone to waste. Again, your location may mean you need to think about different things but read on to see what some of the more popular ones are. You can push deeper into your own industry with bespoke research afterwards. Good luck!
Put Back Your Launch Date
Covid-19 has completely scourged 2020 and in all likelihood it seems there will be a global financial crisis not unlike the one which erupted in 2008. If you were planning to launch this you might want to change your plans a little. You might launch into a market which is completely volatile and will gobble your businesses up whole. You could end up having to look for help with filing for bankruptcy. There’s no shame in pushing back your launch if you can. You might have already committed to the launch with money and dates etc. laid down. But if you have the ability, there’s no shame in it. A launch after the crisis would be better. It all depends on your industry. If you think your business might benefit from the market position, then go ahead. Just be careful and pay attention. It might be worth checking out what your competitors are doing first. Launching at the wrong time has caught out many businesses in the past, don’t let it do the same to you.
Get Your Website Right
So many start ups start out without the right website to represent their brand. They’ll have a website with spelling mistakes included, or a design which just doesn’t sit right or look good. Maybe it will be completely illogical and send the customer all over the site when they just want to get onto a certain page. You need to pay attention and make sure it’s right, because if it isn’t your customer base will certainly punish you for it by just going over to your competitors. Spend time with your developers and make sure you get it all right before going ahead with it. It needs to flow nicely, with a good design that mirrors your branding. If you get this wrong then you’ll be in trouble. Have a look at what your competitors are doing. Follow what they’re doing wrong and improve on it, then imitate what they’re doing right.
Have Some Back-Up Capital For Your Start-Up
A huge mistake for any start-up owner is to spend everything on things you need or want before going ahead and launching. You’ll need some backup money. This is incredibly important. If you don’t have back up money then when things go wrong you won’t be in the right position to help your business. You might even be operating on a shoestring, but you still need some spare capital to use. If you think you can launch without this, then you might not be in the position to launch at all and might be wrong about your whole financial situation. Ensure you have the money for emergencies. If you know what you’re doing you’ll have any potential emergencies scoped out but extra capital can always help you out.
Cover You & Your Start-Up
You need to ensure you and your start-up are covered. If you aren’t, and if something goes wrong you could be liable for a lot of money which could end up putting you out of business. Make sure you have the right insurance. Your industry will have standardized insurance policies. Make sure you follow them. If you don’t you might even be breaking the law in certain situations. The best thing you can do is a bit of research. At the basic level, if you’re operating out of a building then you’ll want building and contents insurance. Make sure it’s a good one too. You can also get business continuity insurance and disaster insurance. A lot of people scoff at this, but look how many went out of business to Covid-19.
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