There’s no one way to make sure that your startup succeeds, but there are certain things you should have if you want to achieve that success. The first thing you need to do is define that term success. Will it be staying in business for one year or for five years? If it’s an ever-moving target, that’s fine too, but you still need some concrete parameters that will help you measure your achievement. With this in mind, you can add the other elements below.
A Need Fulfilled
When you read articles about what it takes to succeed as a business owner, you might see suggestions like passion. You might see more prosaic suggestions such as capital. But there’s one fundamental thing that you have to have, and that’s the ability to fulfill a need. What do you have to offer your customers, and how urgent is it for them? How can you create that sense of urgency? How is what you offer different from what any other competitor has to offer? These questions will help you determine at the outset whether your idea is good enough or if you need to go back to the drawing board.
Organized Finances
Both your personal and business finances need to be well organized. You might think that the former doesn’t matter, but it’s important to get them in order as well. Consider refinancing any student loan debt into a new loan with a different lender. This is often an excellent way to pay off faster while spending less. Take a good look at what you’re spending, and see if there are places where you could tighten the belt. Work on aggressively paying down credit card debt.
As for your business, plan on being on top of what’s going out and what’s coming in even if you hire a bookkeeper or accountant to oversee your ledger. It can be easy to hand all of this off to an expert if it’s not your area of specialty, but that would also be a mistake. You should always be aware of what’s happening with your money at your business even if professionals are keeping the books.
Good Relationships
Good companies are built on good relationships. These can be with former college classmates, current colleagues, and industry people you’ve meet online and offline. Keep your eyes open for new connections all the time. You never know when you might meet someone on vacation or at a neighborhood party who might turn out to be beneficial for you in a business sense. Look for mentors, but pay it forward as well, giving a helping hand to those coming up behind you. These relationships will be key when you want to improve and grow your business down the line.
Delegation Skills
Knowing when it’s time to hand things off to someone else is very hard and very important. Maybe you’ll hire a virtual assistant for just a few hours each week after you’ve been in business for a while, or maybe you’ll launch with several employees. Whatever the case, it’s important to know when and how to hand off tasks so that you can focus on the work that only you can do.
