Interested in starting your own project or business venture, and want to be aware of some common pitfalls so that you can avoid them yourself? Here are some common mistakes to avoid when starting an independent project or business venture…
Not having a clear roadmap ahead
Taking every step as you go and crossing every bridge when you come to it might be something that you can get away with if you’re just doing some extra work in your spare time, or working on a project that you’ve not invested money into, but if beginning a startup venture or funding your own small business off your own back, you need to have a clear plan ahead. As you would do with any financial plan or investment strategy, sit down and think about the long term goals, and what you want to get out of it within a certain time frame – whether that be in terms of sales, followers, financially etc.
It might be a hard question to ask yourself, but it’s also worth thinking about longevity, and whether you think your plan has legs and sustainability. If your idea has been done before and failed in the past, it might be for good reason.
Not having secure finances in place
It’s wholly possible that when things get out of hand that you can run out of runway space financially, and when launching a business off your own back and out of your own pocket it can be financially straining to say the least. Preparing for this possible eventuality should fall under the same camp as making sure you’ve got a sold plan in place.
Tip – In terms of building a financial portfolio in general, having investments under your belt can be a great way of diversifying your assets. Deemed one of the most lucrative and secure investment strategies by RWinvest in their guide, property investment is a lot less volatile than other investment methods out there, giving you stability and consistency in your finances. This can be great for help with a business venture.
Not completing key research
Having an initial idea or lightbulb moment is for many all the motivation needed to jump headfirst into an ambitious project, but without research into why it’s being done and who it’s for, it can quickly fall apart, and it’s difficult to hold on to initial booms in business for long.
If you’re launching a new startup offering a product or service, it’s absolutely vital that you think about what the demand surrounding the area you’re going into looks like. This entails looking at what your competitors are doing right and wrong, what exactly they are offering and how you could perhaps do things differently, and what sort of people they are targeting with their advertisements/marketing. From there, you can construct and perfect your own strategy that does what your competitors are doing but better.
Final summary
Doing research on your prospective clients/customers will also allow you to make sure that the service or project that you’re working on will actually appeal to them. Sometimes when working hard on something we can get close minded and batten down the hatches a little bit, so we need reassurance that when you eventually go live with what you’re working on, it hasn’t swayed too far from the original plans.
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