The 5 Most Important Things to Know About the 1st Year of Your Startup

Creating your own personal startup business offers a lot of attractions; you can decide what you want to do, set your own working hours, change job description upon will and choose a business name of your own liking. However, there are some important things everyone needs to know, especially how things you’ll be expected to do in the first year of your startup. Here’s a list of 5 things that should be on your priority list during the first year of your startup.

1. Time management

You’ll be starting out, so time management won’t be easy in the beginning. You can easily lose control and fall under stress if you try to do too much. There’s a risk of being all over the place without getting anything done. If you’re starting the business at home, you’ll be affected by the food, bed time, pets, parents etc. The best thing to do would be to set specific working hours and be regular. Get the most important tasks done early in the day, such as making calls and posting on social media. When working in office, try to socialize with the employees you hire during after-hours, and use the working environment intelligently.

2. Organization of contracts

Contracts with employees, contracts with clients, contracts with suppliers etc. You’re likely to get in contract with multiple entities. Everyone starting a business knows the importance of these documents, and the more contracts your startup has, the more challenging it gets to keep track. You may even place them in a random location and forget. Contracts need to be managed until their fulfillment date. However, due to the advancement of technology, startup business owners have easy solutions to manage contract paperwork. An example of such solution is contract management software by Contract Logix.

3. Hiring of staff/employees

Your business would need employees during the first year to get going. It would be impractical of you trying to handle every task yourself, especially if you’re managing time set apart for the business. Employees can play a key role in a successful first year. However, finding the right employee or employees can be a real challenge. Don’t just rely on resumes; they’re only meant to start a conversation between you and the application, and won’t show the true identity of a person. Ask them if they’re active on social media, run a project contest between two candidates and do creative screening to find the right fit.

4. Analyze the competition

Try to find out the cost structure and selling prices of your competitors. Avoid getting into a price war with your potential competitors, as they’re already running operations and it would be hard for you to survive. Try to find disparities in the main cost and other expenses if your startup has to survive in the first year.

5. Try to be different

For the ultimate success during the first year, try to do everything differently wherever possible. Don’t jump on the bandwagon of I’ll do how he/she does it. Try to be different while handling your employees, the way you talk to your clients, suppliers etc. Talk to people around you about what they think about the way you’re running things, and use that opinion for your advantage.

Setting these things at the top of the priority list during the first year of operations can help your startup go a long way.