It is easy to get excited about a new business, product, or idea. It is easy to get swept away in big dreams about the future of the company and how successful it will be. But as a business owner, you owe it to yourself to put plans in place to make sure the reality of your business’s future is every bit as rosy as those big dreams, and that requires a growth strategy.
The Roadmap
It is critical early on in the development of your business to create a roadmap of where you are currently, where you would like to be, and when and how you plan to get there. It is important to make realistic and accurate projections of how much you can anticipate earning from your current market. It is also important to remember that all markets are exhaustible. How do you plan to improve or pivot to enter new marketplaces and find new ways to generate revenue once your initial market is saturated? These are all things to consider.
Growth
Part of growing is literally getting bigger as a business. As income begins to flow in, it becomes possible to hire more staff, expand productions, buy more materials, or purchase machines to automate parts of the job. While growth is expensive, it is necessary for success. In order to have a successful growth strategy, it is wise to create and implement one from the very beginning. This will help the business stay on track and make calculated choices for growth.
If you do not have a roadmap or a growth strategy in place, the time to develop one is before you solicit either federal or private funding, not after. Investors will want to see your growth strategy in order to determine their interest in backing you financially. Creating a viable strategy early on is key to optimizing business growth in the future.
We work with high-growth startups and organizations that support the startup and innovation ecosystem. We build highly specific non-dilutive funding menus, provide proposal preparation services, and measure outcomes of funding through evaluation. Schedule a consult call with us HERE.