We all communicate every day in both our social and our business lives but, let’s be honest, some do it so much better and more effectively than others. The very word ‘communicate’ can be interpreted in so many different ways, and applied in even more ways.
Some founders come up with their business ideas alone, whilst others do so with friends or associates. Some founders wish to stay as sole founders, whilst others prefer to work with co-founders to share the tasks, decision making, and risks, as well as adding often complementary skills or knowledge to their own.
Having set up a business there are some very logical next steps that have common features irrespective of what your business will do. Any business needs to sell its product or service and make a profit so that it can reinvest in its future and pay the shareholders.
Welcome to a new series of articles where I will provide practical top tips on a wide range of decisions and challenges that early stage businesses have to make every day. Here I will look at everything from start up to scale up and from the more simple to the more complicated.
Technology, especially new technology, has always had something of a divisive effect; that is it can be seen as black or white, working in good ways or bad. If we look back in history, any technological advance is greeted with great enthusiasm by early adopters and shunned and ridiculed by those with a more traditional outlook on life.
We live in changing times. Rapidly changing times. Times always change and move forward but what has been remarkable recently has been the fact that the speed of change continues to increase year on year. It is no surprise, therefore, that many founders, both first time entrepreneurs and serial entrepreneurs, often ask themselves, and me, ‘where do I go from here?’
It goes without saying that for any business, in any sector, in order for it to survive, grow and prosper, sales are imperative, because sales generate profit and cash flow and these are the lifeblood of any business. It is understandable, therefore, that I often overhear the question ‘how do I promote my business?’
According to UK Government statistics some 660,000 new companies are established each year and many of these will have plans to scale rather than to remain a micro business. Some founders will of course be happy to run their startup as a side hustle, and others will only be looking for a lifestyle business. But for many others that are looking for something larger, ‘how do I scale my business?’ is a question that I am often asked.
For those founders at the beginning of their entrepreneurial journey, whether for the first time or as a serial founder, there is a question that I overhear time and time again and that question is ‘should I be a sole founder or a co-founder?’
As spring turns into summer and the fears of lockdown turn into the uncertainties of release, many early stage companies are effectively having to start all over again, either because they have been temporarily closed and have been in something of a coma like state, or because they have pivoted and the business plan has changed from the original. The question being asked by so many, is ‘what do we do and how do we go about it?’ and is focused around the fundamental question that takes all founders back to the origins of their business.
After nine long weeks of lockdown, businesses are starting to re-open or, at least, planning to reopen in the near future. For some of the luckier ones this might be possible without having to make too many, or too onerous, changes. For others, the planning will need to be much mere detailed and the implementation will be much more complex.
Many businesses ask me many questions but one of the questions that has become more common over the last few months is whether their business should pivot. Regular readers will know that many of the answers to questions I overhear are often prefaced with ‘well it depends’ but this question can in many ways be easier to answer than that.
As we are all starting to hope that the end, or at least a temporary reprieve, is in sight, thoughts are starting to turn to how we and our businesses can bounce back. In fact, another week and another acronym.
As we emerge blinking into the light post lockdown, what will the ‘new normal’ look like? The questions that I am overhearing have changed very recently, from those covering how to survive during lockdown, to those focused around how to get back to normal working? In truth, the questions vary from the theoretical to the practical, but in essence they all ask, ‘how will we adapt to the ‘new normal’?
Money most certainly does not buy happiness, but it does make the world go round. And the lack of money can lead to hardship in many ways. A question that I keep overhearing recently is about whether it is still possible to raise finance during the coronavirus pandemic. The simple answer is yes… maybe!
The longer the coronavirus lockdown goes on, the more my conversations with startups have varied from the norm. Just another example of ‘the new normal’ maybe, but recently I keep overhearing conversations comparing being in lockdown as being similar to being under siege.
Any business at any time has to constantly be considering how best to trade in the present, and how best to trade in the future. This is equally true in the good times as it is in the difficult times. For many, this strange period where the world is caught up in the coronavirus pandemic is certainly one of the much more difficult times, but for some lucky businesses it is actually a period of rapid growth and great opportunity.
Coronavirus is on everyone’s lips, not literally but figuratively. And for very good reason. It seems so long ago already that the only thing in the news was all things Brexit, and how companies will need to adapt in order to survive, and now that has been brushed aside by a much bigger and more urgent threat – coronavirus.
In any business, at any time, cash is king and cashflow is much more important than turnover, and in the short term it can often even be more important than profit. If turnover is vanity and profit is sanity, then cash flow should be regarded as stark reality.
The government backed Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) has been rolled out at unprecedented speed, and the size of the financial packages being made available to support businesses and employees are also unprecedented. But these are also, of course, unprecedented times.
