The scariest reality with startups is “90 percent of startups [are] destined to fail.” As reported by Entrepreneur, there is a high chance of failure with startups. However, there are ways to jumpstart your new business so that you can understand what you are going to need to do to put your business in the 10% of startups that see success.
1) Analyze your barrier to entry
“Slow down. Take the long view.” For your business to see success, you need to be realistic about what you are getting into. “Analyze what your perspective barriers to entry are.” You need to see exactly what is currently holding you back from success. This could be anything from permits or certificates to high costs. “Probably the most common way to troubleshoot barriers to entry is to create a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) board. It may seem a little Business 101, but this is a helpful method of visualizing where you’ll run into snags.” This is an incredibly simple, yet useful, tool so that you can analyze exactly where you are and where you want to go so that you can see precisely what you need to do to reach your goals.
2) Be open
You’re going to have to wear a lot of different hats in your new business, and so you need to be open to all of them. “Even if specific tasks such as finance or marketing aren’t really your forte, you’d better get comfortable operating within different verticals, and quick.” You can’t start a business and expect to stay in one role the entire time. You’re going to have to move around and cover different corners of the business and you’re going to have to take the initiative in that.
3) Take the initiative
You’re clearly already doing this if you want to jumpstart your new business, but the reality is that “When you’re your own boss, no one is going to sit you down and tell you that you need to get next month’s pipeline into the spreadsheets.” You’re going to have to be diligent and resourceful and you’re going to have to remain vigilant. Take the initiative in your business because nobody else is going to do it for you.
4) Leave room for imperfection
Here’s the thing… imperfection is the rule, not the exception. “Even after your business becomes successful, imperfect decisions are the best we ever get – but this is especially true for startups founders who base most of their decisions on imperfect data.” You need to leave room for imperfection so that it does not sideline your entire business because the reality is that they exist and they are going to be a part of your decision-making, of your business and of your life. The silver lining of imperfection? This is where you learn the most.
5) Learn from mistakes
From your own mistakes and from others’, mistakes can be life’s greatest instructor. “This is probably both the easiest piece of advice to implement in your startup planning as well as the hardest.” Mistakes can be astronomical and they can be small but at the end of the day, they’re mistakes. That means they are going to have some sort of negative impact. However, it is important to find the positive in a mistake. You must be able to learn from mistakes so that you don’t make them again and so that you can expand your toolkit of knowledge and skills. Learning and growing from mistakes is what will make you successful.
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