When you begin your start up, alone or with partners, the goal is usually growth and ways to scale up your business as quickly as possible. However, focusing on your business while also working in it, then finding the right tools and steps to get to the next level, is often a difficult path to navigate.
This is why creating and building a support network is one of the first steps every new start up needs to take to ensure getting to the next level of business is as easy and profitable as possible.
But how do you do this is a world filled with entrepreneurial dreamers?
If you ensure you have these four start up support strategies in place, you’ll grow to the next level of business in no time.
1) Find a mentor
While your business idea might be the first of its kind, building a business is essentially the same for everyone. This is why you need to find a mentor who has a similar mindset, morals and success you strive for in your own business.
Whether you get together for a meeting over coffee, a Zoom call or simply exchange emails, having someone with experience in the business world to bounce ideas off is ideal. Find someone who not only has a proven track record of business and mentoring success, but also has your best business interests at heart, and is not afraid to tell you to turn left instead of right. This alone is often the key the foundation for your start up.
2) Connect and network
Sure, many of today’s successful companies began as start-ups in lounge rooms and garage spaces, but without networking and getting yourself out of the garage and into key business environments, your great business idea might never leave the lounge room.
One of today’s most effective and creative ways to connect with likeminded entrepreneurs is to base yourself in a coworking office. Even better is to find coworking spaces specialising in scaling up businesses.
According to the firm Ernst & Young, it is important to “catalyse your company’s growth by building and fostering critical relationships.” There is no doubt in a world full of great ideas, it is those who share those ideas, and their business, with the right people are the ones who scale up and are successful.
3) Have a plan for your end game
Every new start-up is full of people with ideas and innovation, and with also dreams of where these will take you in the future. But dreams without a plan to get you to your end game rarely come to fruition. This is why you need to work back from the end game to develop your growth strategies from the beginning.
Tim Ferriss, one of the world’s leading minds in the start-up arena, believes having a clear picture of what your end game looks like is the most important part of every new business venture. Ferriss says, “You need to understand your desired destination before you can craft the scale strategy that will get you there.” Simply put: you need a plan on how you can scale up and where you want to go.
4) Pitch your ideas to investors
Once you’ve laid your foundation with a mentor, created a network and have a plan, it’s time to look for investors to help scale up your business. Investment capital is critically important for you and your business to grow and prosper regardless of how ingenious your idea may be.
With money in the bank and the confidence of investors backing your business, you can now take the steps necessary to take your start up to the next level, whatever that looks like for you.
Whether you hire people to sell or manufacture, invest in needed technology or patents, or simply have peace of mind knowing your bills will be paid for the next year, having financial backing helps you have confidence in your business. Even more important, it shows potential customers you are a viable business who is striving for the next level of success as you scale up.
