GUEST BLOG: Four tips to survive the first year of start-up

By Christina Matthew, marketing executive at Groovy Essays

When you launch your start-up business, the first 12 months are extremely crucial.

It is that formative phase when you will be suffering from financial burden, workload and employee management.

However, a start-up business is more than putting money and managing a team. It takes a great amount of your emotional investment to make your dream business a reality and making grave mistakes during the first year can have implications on your start-up business.

Nevertheless, it is frustrating to see a growing number of entrepreneurs who fail to pull off their business during those critical 12 months. Part of the problem is associated with entrepreneurs’ lack of knowledge and insights on planning the first year. So, if you are one of those entrepreneurs who care about their newly launched business, you need to be mindful of these four tips to successfully get through first year:

1. Plan, plan and plan

When you launch a start-up business, you are embarking on a journey of uncertainties and probabilities. You might be struck with substantial overheads. There might be shortage of competent workforce. You can face issues with infrastructure. All this requires you to make a detailed plan so that you have a picture of things you will be dealing during the first year.

Similarly, you can face unforeseen events that might affect your business. Though, you cannot do anything about a sudden onset of recession or shortage of workforce, you can lessen its effects if you have a master plan and a reserve plan in place.

2. Seek validation from successful entrepreneurs

When you set your course on road to entrepreneurship, you are about to face many dilemmas. There will be times when you might feel clueless while making a decision for something you have no idea about. It is like a leap in the dark that might turn out to be a success or failure.

In such crucial time, you can take help of your seniors to get validation about an idea. Therefore, you need to surround yourself with people who have been through the hotchpotch of entrepreneurship. So, when you need a second opinion on a matter, you can always turn to them for expert advice.

3. Set your financial goals

Running a business from scratch demands a substantial amount of investment, especially if you are a bootstrap business. As an entrepreneur, you might feel over whelmed with constant flow of cash during the first financial year. What you will need is a financial plan to help you survive those 12 critical months of your start-up business.

As you are venturing out on an entrepreneurship journey, a one-year budget should not be in your agenda and you have to be financially prepared at least for the next two to three years. The best way you can do this is by creating a rolling forecast rather than relying upon on annual budget. Unlike regular financial forecasting, a rolling forecast is not restricted to a single financial year. So, you will be planning beyond a 12-month fiscal year.

4. Find investors

For any start-up business, a funding is the fuel to keep it driving towards its goal. Therefore, it is important to have investors in your pocket to make your business idea a reality. What you need to do is get around with people who might be your future investors. However, your networking with potential investors should take a bit of thought process.

Prior to your meeting with an investor a success, it is important that you are geared up with necessary details about viability of your business idea. What you will need is a complete business proposal about what your future business will be about and how it will stand out with the competition. To make your proposal more impactful, you can take help of a digital tool, for example a projector, to demonstrate the nitty-gritty details of your start-up project.

… it is frustrating to see a growing number of entrepreneurs who fail to pull off their business during those critical 12 months

As an entrepreneur, it is important that your actions are directed towards a successful first year of your business. Keeping these four tips in mind will help you survive the first year of your start-up business.