Due to inexperience, shortage of time or lack of funds, a lot of small businesses make mistakes during their launch. These mistakes are later usually quite hard to fix. Luckily, a lot of people choose to learn on mistakes of others rather than their own, which allows them to start their business on the right foot the first time around. With this in mind, here are a few tips that may help you out.
Postponing the Launch Indefinitely
Sure, sometimes you may feel like your business is not ready for the launch, which in some cases might be true. However, postponing the launch indefinitely is never a good idea. Just because everything is not perfect doesn’t mean your business isn’t ready. A lot of time, your business niche can easily become oversaturated. So, entering this game too late can be a mistake your business won’t recover from.
Taking Money from the Wrong People
Once you have an inspiration for a great business idea, you will feel the urgency to get things going. However, you will be lacking funds to set things in motion right away. Unfortunately, this impatience sometimes results in choosing wrong investors for your business. This happens quite often which is why you need to keep in mind that common interests are not the same thing as a common vision. After a while, your investors may try to take more part in choosing company’s future direction and if your goals differ, this might lead to a serious problem. An investor is a long-term partner and that’s why you need to choose them wisely.
Disregarding Potential Litigation
Sadly, we live in a world where raising a lawsuit is easier than putting your trousers on in the morning. This means that should your employees, investors, creditors, customers or partners feel the need to resort to litigation, they will undoubtedly be able to do so in no time. You need to prepare for this in time. The most sensible course of action is to contact a firm offering litigation support services. This will provide you with both expert reports and expert oral testimony in court. No matter what you do, in such a situation the court will be obliged to instigate their own financial investigation, but it is always better to gather this data beforehand, just in case.
Believing That Customer is Always Right
People who believe that the customer is always right are planting the seed of distrust in their own organization. Sure, sometimes it’s better to just turn the other cheek since otherwise you will lose a client. On the other hand, asking your staff to do the same when they did nothing wrong can be devastating for the company’s morale. No, the customer is not always right and you need to show your staff that you have their back.
Ignoring Constructive Feedback
As soon as you get your idea out there, you will get a lot of feedback. Some people will try to be nice and tell you exactly what you want to hear, but others commenters won’t be that pleasant. It is in people’s nature to be mean to complete strangers online, but this doesn’t mean that every complaint about your way of doing business is unfounded. Admitting you did something wrong is always hard, but this is the only way in which you can help your business improve. Furthermore, showing gratitude towards constructive criticism may convert some of these critics into future loyal customers.
Conclusion
As you can see, none of these ideas are per se revolutionary, but you would be surprised just how often they get overseen by new business owners. In light of these facts, it is no wonder that 9 out of 10 startups fail during their first year. Luckily, they set examples of how not to act to others, which means that all of their trouble was not in vain. Looking at what they did wrong is probably all you need to start your business on the right foot.
