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Give Your Startup Business the Edge it Needs

Guest post by: Roland Petrov

Article Overview: Many small businesses go out of business during, or right after, their first year of operation. This is why the advice is commonly given to have enough start-up capital to see the business through two years. Here is some advice to help you give your start-up business the edge it needs to survive into its second year.

Give Your Startup Business the Edge it Needs

Many small businesses go out of business during, or right after, their first year of operation. This is why the advice is commonly given to have enough start-up capital to see the business through two years. It should almost be a given that the projected income will not materialize during the first year of operation.

It's a real shame, in the business sense, that small businesses who would see themselves becoming profitable during their second year of operation often don't give themselves that chance. Too much start up capital is borrowed and spent, leaving not enough for inventory or supplies just as the business is being discovered and customers are starting to trust it. Or perhaps the project was too ambitious for the amount of capital available. Internet sales is one way to supplement income; however, setting up a website and promoting it sufficiently takes time. In my case, I wish I had started this process prior to opening my physical location instead of months afterwards. Having an established presence on the Internet prior to investment in real estate may just give a business the edge it needs.

Another tip I'm learning by experience is all about timing. I opened a tea store in Coupeville WA at a time when tea was rapidly gaining in popularity, as it still is. So this was a good thing; however, I opened the store in a tourist town at the end of the summer tourist season. It was a case of, “What was he thinking?”

When starting a new small business, be aware that you'll need to take advantage of as many conditions as possible to give you the edge that will be needed for success and longevity, and then identify the unique conditions that relate to you. Apart from the above examples, you may want to look carefully for suppliers of products that will stand out, at fees you'll be paying when accepting credit cards, for real estate where landlords will work with you, not against you, and so on.

The bottom line is this: if new businesses did not need to find an edge or take advantage of certain conditions, none of them would go out of business. The fact that so many new businesses go out of business quickly means that they failed to find that edge or take advantage of those conditions that would have made the difference and led to success.

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Article Tags: business edge, business startup, small businesses, startup business, tea
Referred by: http://grasp-the-nettle.com/



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