How To Keep Your Start Up Afloat In Its First Year

Building a successful start-up and keeping it afloat is a worry for many. After all, having dedicated so much time, money and effort to the project, you want to ensure it goes smoothly. Even though it can be challenging to improve the odds of your small business surviving the first year, it certainly isn’t impossible. Providing you know exactly how to keep your startup afloat in its first year, you can begin to relax and truly enjoy the benefits of having a start-up business.

Whilst bad credit payday loans are available in a personal financial emergency, they are unable to help lift your startup off the ground, which is why it is paramount you know how to do it yourself. If you want to find out how to keep your startup afloat in its first year, carry on reading!

Create A Business Plan

The first and most important step to keeping your startup afloat in its first year is to create a business plan. Often, having a business plan is mistaken as being only a necessity for those seeking finance with a bank or an investor. However, this is not the case. Regardless of what your startup entails, you must create a business plan. Having a business plan will outline the direction of your small business that will generate a clear vision and maintain focus for your business over the coming years.

Your to-do list might be a mile long, but a business plan doesn’t necessarily need to be professionally written, and it certainly doesn’t need to be one-hundred pages or more. By simply outlining your vision from the start, you can rest assured that the direction of your start-up is more likely to remain on track.

Keep Overhead Costs Low

The next step towards keeping your startup afloat in its first year is to keep your overhead costs as low as possible (check out our discounts page here). Whilst it might not be possible to keep your overhead costs low forever, ensuring that they are within the first 365 days of your startup business is paramount. If possible, instead of hiring excess staff, take on more tasks yourself (within reason!) or arrange work experience or volunteer opportunities to help you get by should you require additional assistance at any stage.

In the same way, choosing a location that fits your needs, not your wants, will help keep your business afloat in its first year. Shared spaces leasing or pop up locations are great while your business is generating some steam. Once it has you can begin looking into other options, such as commercial leasing.

Have Enough Start-Up Capital

In order to get your business up and running, it is paramount that you have sufficient funds and enough start-up capital to help lift your small business up off the ground and into the industry with force.  The cost of starting a small business varies depending on countless factors, including professional fees, sales and marketing, stock, premises costs and insurance.

One of the major reasons for the failure of a start-up business within the first year is being underfinanced, so don’t make the same mistake. Should you need to wait a year or two to have sufficient funds, so be it!

Reinvest As Much As You Can

During the first year of your start-up business, it is paramount that you strive to reinvest as much as you can back into your business. The first year of your startup is not about bulking out your own personal bank account, it is instead for the marketing and building of your brand, and the product or service you offer or provide. Essentially: the more you reinvest into your business during its first year, the stronger your foundation will be for the future, and the easier it will be to transition into the next year of business.

In order to keep your start-up afloat in its first year, it is crucial that you eliminate the non-believers. Obtaining a new way of thinking can significantly increase your chances of surviving the first year as a start-up, and will make it far easier to keep it afloat. Keeping overhead costs low, reinvesting as much as you can back into your beloved business, ensuring that you have enough funds to keep your business going and creating a business plan to maintain focus can all help you become a successful entrepreneur. Good luck!