WHAT MISTAKES STARTUPS MAKE AT THE START OF THE CALENDAR YEAR

We have all been there. The year has just started and we have a fresh turnaround before us. A brand new year for us to delve into and potentially reap the rewards. However, isn’t this one of the mistakes we could make? 

In our efforts to become better and achieve more in the coming year, we might give ourselves too much of a head start. In fact, some of us give ourselves such a shove that we end up messing up our entire first quarter. So what is it really that we all need to be careful of? What are the challenges a new year might have in store for us and why should we be careful of January? 

To start with, some of us don’t set clear goals. There is much talk of starting your year right and laying the foundations but when it comes to actually being organized, only a few people sit down and chart out their full year. Yes, the entirety of it. As we mentioned in our previous blog piece, sitting down with yourself and planning out the entirety of the year by breaking it down into tangible quarterly, monthly, and weekly goals is what will help you stop procrastinating and head into the new year with a good direction. 

Mistake number two is going into the new year with a LOT of enthusiasm. Don’t get us wrong, being eager to start is a good thing but just not when that hinders your progress. Typically, when you are enthused about starting something, you can’t get it out of your mind and you go over it again and again and again until you go out and do it. And that’s exactly it. You keep thinking, feeling, and being emotional about the task rather than calculating and selective. This, in turn, makes it harder for you to actually focus on doing and sets you far into your mind. You don’t think about anything else and do anything else, and this makes it difficult for you to see the bigger picture. You might end up investing a lot of time and effort into something not so worthwhile, and become convinced this is the way to go although you might be beating a dead horse.

Mistake 3 is going full in. Yes, including funds and time. When that’s the only thing you think about and have set out for yourself, it’s easy to slip and allocate more means than necessary to the business. Having three months' worth of savings will be difficult to rely on when you are paying salaries, a marketing budget, and living off the money yourself. Instead of going full out, figure out what is important for you to invest in at this stage of your business and what will help propel you forward. If you already have some customers, what can you do to get more? If your business is in its infancy, could marketing be useful for you? What makes sense and what doesn’t? Figure this out and plan out your expenses in advance. See how many months you can sustain yourself with it and roll away. 

The last mistake most startups make at the start of a new year is to start with big plans, make a tight schedule, and then drop off at the end of the year. Quite literally. Events, webinars, and online or in-person exchanges are good to spread out throughout the year. Having a few in Q1 and then following up on them in Q2 and so on will only help you show progress, interact with more, or the same, investors over a longer period of time, and also meet and network with more people from different backgrounds. Shooting all your bullets early will put you in a position where you aren’t able to follow up or develop any ongoing relationships with the same efficiency.

What do you think are the mistakes startups make at the start of the new year? Comment below!