Educate yourself on every aspect of starting up a new business including how to prepare a feasibility study that will stand up to scrutiny, finance and accounting, legal matters, Intellectual Property (IP), fundraising, recruiting co-founders, allocating equity to co-founders, recruitment, banking, setting up a board of directors, governance matters, leadership and all the other matters you are likely to come across during your start-up journey. Read all the books you can on start-ups and have the confidence to know when to bring on board the experts you need at the start-up phase. Bringing on board experts at the wrong time could be very costly so know and understand when to recruit them and how to make an agreement with them.
Make yourself accountable to someone else who is also starting up a business so that you can share your journey. Being an entrepreneur can be a lonely existence for some.
Make sure you have good IT and data analytics skills so that you can work on the various tools available for building a business plan and market research.
Do a feasibility study and prepare a report to prove your business idea is sustainable and has traction in the marketplace.
If you have an idea for a new product, use an engineering design consultant to work with you to get your product right for the market.
Seek available Government assistance to help you fund the feasibility study and get your business launched.
Recruit a mentor who can guide you.
Start working on your business plan early and evolve it over time.
Do your homework and understand financial and legal jargon.
Take care of your personal affairs.
Take care of your mental health, you need to be the cool dude in the room when things get heated.
Practice your pitches to investors in advance and know your numbers well.
Always research your investors in advance so you don't waste their time and yours, and tailor your presentations to their needs.
Learn the difference between cash flow and a Profit & Loss Account.
Protect your IP and understand what is involved.
Set up a company, a board of directors, and good governance.
Recruit co-founders with the right skills and work on an equity split for them.
Start your funding search and put together a plan for raising finance for your project.
Recruit the best people available, pay them well and learn how to motivate them to give the business the best chance of success.
As your project progresses get to understand the timings for fundraising and be aware of the need to dilute your and your co-founder's holdings.
Familiarize yourself with how funding start-ups work and with how start-ups are valued.
Set up a company and take care of all company secretarial matters.
Register for taxes.
Choose a brand name and a domain name for your website
Prepare your mission and vision statement with your team and have it approved by your board of directors.
Plan your marketing strategy.
Understand and evaluate risk.
Set up a cloud accounting and reporting system and there are several on the market which are industry specific.
Appoint your auditors and legal representatives.
Appoint a company insurance broker and ensure you have proper coverage.
Sep up management meetings at least weekly to review progress with the team.
Write company policy statements on health & safety, human resource management, and all the other important matters necessary for compliance.
Sep up a legal and tax compliance timetable, make sure to make all legal and tax returns on time, and pay your taxes on time.
Set the company culture from the start.
Start building a business that does not need you all the time.
Consider an exit strategy.
If you want to learn more about this subject register on this website for further blogs from Noreen Hynes B. Comm, FCA, Author, and Entrepreneur. Noreen would love to know about your struggles so let her know what you want to learn more about so she can cover them in her blogs on www.noreenhynes.com Noreen's book Start-up Checklist for Success is available on Amazon now. Here is the link https://amzn.eu/d/ckhMAuP
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