First Year Of Business Survival Guide

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that only 50 percent of business startups make it through the fifth year. If your startup is real estate, your chances are a little better (58 percent); if you are in retail (47 percent) or information (37 percent), the odds are a bit worse.

The first year of business sets the tone, and companies that start off on the right foot improve their chances of not only surviving, but also thriving. The infographic below, “First Year of Business Survival Guide,” gives entrepreneurs foundational survival advice in all key areas of the enterprise — at a glance.

The infographic format was selected for this topic because entrepreneurs with new ventures are busy enough setting up shop without the added burden of dissecting a 10,000-word textbook about business organization. To make your job as easy as possible, we created an infographic that distills the business knowledge and experience of our organization down to the must-do actions that make or break a new enterprise. Without doubt, there are many, many other bases that need to be covered — but without these 11 items, entrepreneurs will have a difficult time staying in the game no matter how well they run those other bases.

Another advantage of boiling down the survival guide to a manageable number of 11 items: One of the biggest missteps a new business can make is trying to do too much and overcomplicating the effort.

For instance, from an executive leadership perspective, it is far more effective to emphasize a handful of goals than a wheelbarrow full. Too many goals makes focus difficult, and more often than not confuses the team (if not the business owners themselves) — the upshot of which is not merely falling short of every goal, but often working at cross purposes. A small set of goals — provided they are the right ones — give new businesses the best chance of success, by far.

Another widely applicable example of simplicity trumping complexity is in the IT function. Many startups get wrapped up in their own wiring, trying to hit the ground running with complex, state-of-the-art information technologies and operating platforms. The real survival issues are much simpler: keeping the computer system up and running and phone lines open. As many a former entrepreneur can tell you, upsetting prospects with website pages that don’t load, being unable to process orders and dropping the call when they want to phone in an order are sure ways to go out of business — quickly.

Succeed with simplicity. This more than anything is the key to success in the first year of operation — and we hope this infographic makes yours a smashing success.