Surviving Your First Year in Business

One of the most vulnerable times for any business is the first year of trading. It’s the period when the dream of owning a business can be dashed by the reality of actually ‘being’ in business.

This section of our website is here to help you adapt to the reality of being a business owner. To warn you about some of the pitfalls and hopefully prepare you for them if they happen.

The purpose of the content is to focus solely on one critical goal: we want to help your business survive its first year.

What these pages are for

The content on this part of the website is designed to help new owners face the realities of keeping their business afloat during the first twelve months. It’s not a guide to forming a limited company or writing a business plan from scratch because there is already plenty of advice around on that kind of thing. This is simply practical, real-world based, content to help you through the first year in business.

Maybe you won’t need our advice. Maybe you will plan for things that don’t happen, and maybe you will sail through your first year with no issues. However, at the time of writing this, depending on how you measure it, between 10 and 20% of new businesses cease to trade in the first 12 months.

Often, this is not because they didn’t read the ‘how to’ guides, or even because they did anything wrong; we think it is sometimes just because they weren’t prepared for the reality of being in business.

The first year tests everything. It tests your business model, your cashflow, your confidence, and particularly your ability to adapt. This section exists to help you pass those tests and come out stronger.

What you will find here!

We’ve started with five key topics. These will expand later, but to begin with, we wanted to reflect some of the most common and most damaging challenges that many new businesses face in their first year.

Each one is written with a focus on practical action, early intervention, and realistic planning.

Cashflow

This page looks at why managing your cashflow is the most important thing you can do. It covers basic techniques for cashflow forecasting, keeping control of money coming in and going out, but crucially, it looks at the easy to fall in traps that often end in financial issues for a new business.

Is the market for your business really there?

Having a good idea is not the same as having a market. This section explores how to validate your business offering and make sure your ‘great idea’ is as great as you think.

Not being a super-human

Many business owners wait too long to ask for help and try to do it all themselves. Knowing when to get help is often the difference between survival and insolvency or burnout.

Sales and marketing are not optional for a new business

You can’t survive the first year without making sales and letting people know what you do. More to the point, you need to speak to the right people and have a sales process that brings in the money.

Resilience is another area that isn’t an option in a new business

Sadly, occasionally, events outside your control threaten the future of your business. The unexpected events, such as losing a major client or personal illness, cybersecurity problems to supply chain collapse, can cause huge problems. This page offers advice on building resilience into your business so you can survive unexpected shocks.

These are not academic studies or overly optimistic ‘build your dream and they will come’ kind of content. They are honest guides, and at times, maybe even a little blunt, perhaps, but we see a lot of insolvencies that could have been avoided. That’s what we are trying to do with these pages, we want to help you avoid the early financial issues that often end up leading to having to close your business.

Practical, honest and rooted in experience

We are not suggesting some ‘revolutionary 10-point programme’ or offering generic business advice here. Our goal is to help you avoid some pitfalls and also maybe help if that first year turns a little tough. The focus is on what really matters when your business is under pressure and what to avoid when you can.

We have seen a lot of insolvencies over the years, and too many were a result of factors like a small lapse in planning, the sudden impact of an unexpected event or the reality of actually being in business compared to the dream of owning one.

To succeed and survive your first year, you will need to face a lot. This is our attempt to help by offering some grounded advice. It may not always be nice, and it may not always be things you want to think about, but realistically speaking, that first year is likely to be a difficult one at times.

As always, any advice should be taken in the context of your business and, of course, we can’t cover every possibility in these pages. In the end, it will be up to you. Remember, the golden rule is when in doubt, ask an expert.