Avoid These 2 Major Mistakes When You’re Planning to Start a Business
When you start a business, there can be a steep learning curve. Knowing about some of the most common mistakes that people make can help you to avoid them, and have a better chance of getting your business off the ground. Most businesses fail within their first year. To avoid being one of these, avoid these common mistakes.
#1: Not Enough Research
Research and planning are essential to ensure that your business idea can succeed and that your pricing is both competitive in your marketplace and gives you an adequate return.
Lack Of In-Depth Market Research
It’s easy to get over-excited with a new business idea and set up a business without testing whether it can work. Accurate market research data will make sure that you are able to understand your market and generate realistic forecasts.
You should think about what audience and customers need and use market research to test your ideas. Feedback can be used to improve your products or services.
Keeping Your Business Ideas to Yourself
Sharing your business ideas with people that you trust means you can get feedback. Take a note of any good ideas you get from brainstorming and use these when you move your business forward.
Gathering feedback on your plans can help you to find whether or not a product offers a solution to a problem or is something new that customers would purchase. Positive feedback should inform all the decisions that you make and could help to attract investment. Negative feedback gives you the chance to rethink your plans and could help you make better use of your time and money on more profitable ideas.
If you want to keep your ideas a secret, you could use a non-disclosure agreement. This is a legal contract between you and another party not to disclose information that you have shared for a specific purpose.
#2: Weak Financial Planning
A lack of funding or contingency planning or a reluctance to take professional advice can cause big problems.
Lack Of Funding
Having enough capital is essential for the survival and prosperity of your business, and is one of the main signs of how healthy your business is. It is important to create a business plan to attract and secure the right type and amount of funding. A business plan can:
- Be used as a tool to structure the financial side of your business and can be updated and changed as your business grows
- Keep your expectations grounded for what the business can deliver
Lack Of a Contingency Plan
There are situations that you can’t control that could impact your business and cash flow, such as interest rate rises, transport strikes, and political instability. You can avoid problems with office downtime with a serviced office. A serviced Office from BE Offices is the best for your start-up business. While your business can survive periods with no profits, it cannot survive without cash. Building up cash reserves will make sure you can keep trading, even in difficult times.
