Opening a new business can be exciting and daunting in equal measures. On one hand, you get to follow your entrepreneurial passions and bring something uniquely yours to the market. But the lead-up to the big day can feel like a chaotic juggling act.
It’s important to remember that your business’s opening day is not the be-all and end-all of your company. Hopefully, you’ll have years to carefully sculpt the shape of a business you can be proud of. Nevertheless, it’s always worth putting your burgeoning business into a solid starting position.
We’re going to explore 5 things you need to do before your company’s launch date.
Find a Mentor
A career as an entrepreneur tends to attract self-driven people. But this doesn’t mean to say you can’t benefit from the experience of others. Especially if you’re new to the startup experience, it’s worth seeking out a mentor.
The right mentor can give you insights into the challenges you’re likely to face in the run-up to your opening day and how best to overcome them. Wherever possible, look for mentors in a similar industry. Teaming up with your direct competitors is not always a wise option. But you can still connect with those operating in a different part of the sector or running larger companies.
If you have entrepreneurial meetups in your local area, this can be a good way to connect with potential mentors in person. Reaching out on social media can also be a viable option. LinkedIn can be especially helpful when looking for a mentor, either through searching industry groups or through the platform’s Career Advice program.
Establish Your Goals
A strong set of organizational goals is a powerful component of keeping you and your staff aligned throughout the myriad tasks you’ll be performing in the run-up to your launch. Particularly if you’re working with a globally dispersed remote team, these aims can help make sure everyone is productive. There is a shared understanding of what needs to be achieved by the launch date and how everyone can get there.
You need to be strategic here. Perform a full assessment of the current state of the company and how it needs to change and develop by opening day. A strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis can be a good tool in this regard. Wherever possible, involve your team in establishing the goals, the timeline, and the milestones to hit along the way.
Map Your Finances
Without constant attention to your finances, your accounts can very quickly get out of hand. As such, you need to carefully map your finances. You’ve likely already performed some analysis here to create your business plan. But you also need to give a micro-level of attention to how your resources will be used to prepare and launch your company. Treat your opening as a project within your business that requires its own budget, resources, and projections.
Carefully review your goals for the launch and assign financial forecasts to the costs here and even how you predict each action will impact your returns. Plot your expected financial expenditure along the timeline of your opening period. Make certain you or a member of your bookkeeping team are monitoring this to make sure you’re hitting on or below these targets.
Assess Your Competition
It’s a safe assumption that you won’t be the only player in your industry. Even if you have a different brand approach or you consider your methods innovative, there will still be other businesses in your market space. You can benefit from assessing your competition in the run-up to your opening.
Among the best reasons to do this is it gives you advantages your competition doesn’t have. You can review the mistakes they made leading up to their launch. You have the power to understand where they’re leaving gaps in customer experience or productivity and adjust your methods to capitalize on these before you open. Where they might be struggling with digital transformation, you can implement the right tech tools from the outset.
You don’t have to break the bank to perform a decent competitor analysis, either. Gather information about who the key businesses in your sector are with some targeted web searches. Look at social media channels and review sites to get a good impression of what customers think about these businesses and where their weaknesses lie. Your employees should be able to provide insights based on their areas of expertise when researching the actions of your competition, too.
Understand Your Limitations
It’s a harsh truth, but a 2019 Small Business Administration study found the failure rate of startups is around 90%. There are various reasons for this and some will be outside of your control. However, in the run-up to your opening, you can make a good start by better understanding what your company’s limitations are.
Commit to a solid risk assessment. Learn about what hazards you face and what your ability is to overcome these. This should include everything from the potential for cybersecurity breaches to the elements that might cause business disruption on your launch day and beyond. You can then plan measures to adjust to your limitations.
One important limitation you must understand and acknowledge is that you won’t always have the most effective solutions straight away. But simply knowing what the issues and your limitations are can allow you to plan a route forward. You can implement the strongest available interim actions while strategizing how to improve these over time.
Conclusion
The run-up to your business’s launch can be an exciting time. But it’s also important to understand what steps you need to take to get off to the best possible start. Identifying your goals and mapping your finances are important forms of planning. Gaining access to a mentor, reviewing your competition, and understanding your limitations all give you access to actionable intelligence. With some consideration, your opening day can set your company up for success.
