7 Tips for a Successful Business, Right from the Start  

They say timing is everything in life and in business, and nowhere is it more crucial than when launching a commercial venture. There are other variables as well that a prospective business owner needs to consider before taking the gigantic (and thrilling) leap of being her own boss and overseeing a staff, or putting an exciting new product out on the marketplace. There are also less appetizing aspects, however, like sticking to a budget, and voluminous amounts of paperwork and taxes.

Here then are some savvy pointers to bear in mind when first embarking upon your own enterprise, to maximize a chance of success, and minimize any downside:

1. Get Your Timing Right
Make sure the market is ready for your business, so you don’t make the dreaded mistake of “being ahead of your time” or even worse, “missing the window of opportunity.” More importantly, know your industry’s business “rhythms.” Many new endeavors fail because they don’t take time to consider the cycles that affect their particular industry and market.  For example:

• If you’re a consumer product business selling to retailers, you’ll want to know when the buying season is, so you can a) be sure you have your product samples ready to pitch to buyers, and b) figure out the timing for when the products need to be ready for store shelves.
• If you’re launching a product or service that has a peak season during certain months (e.g. summer), you’ll actually want to launch a month or two before the peak season (i.e. early spring).  This will give you time to test your products or service. The opposite (and troublesome) scenario: you miss the peak season by launching in late summer, and get stuck shelling out for expenses for an extended period, without any revenue coming in.

2.  Test It Before You Launch It
So many times, an entrepreneur will think of a great product or service, but not actually test it in the market before officially launching it. So it’s important to spend time researching the usability of your product/service and its probable functionality once it’s ready to launch. You’ll likely be surprised how much your solution might evolve after you’ve done a little research and tested it with family, friends, and a small sample size of your target customers.  You’ll also want to make sure it’s really up and running properly before you launch it on a large scale; after all, it may be very difficult to recover from the negative backlash if your product isn’t ready for the market.

• Note: Testing is critical, but on the other hand, don’t let over-testing and over-thinking result in continually pushing out the “reveal” date of your venture. If you have to make the choice, it’s better to launch a product that’s “almost there,” and simply tweak it along the way, than not to launch it at all.

3. Be Different and Stand Out
This one should be common sense, but it’s surprising how many start-ups don’t spend time on competitive research.  Here’s how to look at it: your business doesn’t necessarily have to be unique in the sense that no one else is doing it — but you need to be unique in the sense that no one else does it quite like you do it.

So key questions to ask are the following:

• Who are your competitors?
• What are they doing?
• How are they doing it?
• How can you stand out in a market that might already be saturated with other players?

Once you’ve established how you’re different, it’s critical that you communicate it to your target customers.  Sarah Blakely, the founder of Spanx, didn’t invent women’s hosiery, but she presented it in a way that was different from her competitors, offering a product that she needed as a woman, and would readily wear — and more importantly, would definitely purchase.

4. Stay Extremely Lean
Don’t make the disastrous mistake of overspending at launch or shortly after launch.  Spend money only on resources you currently absolutely need. Many start-ups will make the unwise decision to lease office space for future capacity (6-12 months out) based on a forecast of their growth trajectory,  not on actual results.  Therefore, they don’t actually know if they will be able to support the capacity or the cost of a large space in six months.

Instead, work out of someone’s home or a small inexpensive office, so you can spend additional dollars on activities or people who will help you get to your 6-12 month growth goals.  Then lease a larger space once you feel confident you can support incremental cost.

5. Keep it Simple

Enough said.

6. Master the Art of Listening
In the always-buzzing business environment, it’s easy to forget that listening is often more important than adding to the noise.  You gain new insights when you listen to the needs of your customers, team members, partners and even competitors — but especially your customers.  As a start-up, it’s likely you will need to develop and adjust your product or service based mainly on your customers’ needs.  Listen closely, then, to both positive and negative feedback, and actively seek input from your social channels or customer surveys like Survey Monkey.  Thru that process, you can tweak your product or services based on that response to continually optimize your solution.

7. Leverage Technology
There are so many useful and cost-effective tools to enable the success of a lean start-up. When you think about it, it’s actually pretty incredible: around the globe, thousands of people work vigorously to come up with gadgets and software that can make your life in the business sphere both easier and more profitable.

So leverage their hard work, and make sure you stay up-to-date on the latest technology that can help your business succeed.  Then take time to shop around; some paid services will offer you free extended trials if they know you’re looking at competitors.  Here are some tools to consider:

• Website Tools: WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, Weebly
• File & Data Sharing: Dropbox, Box, or Google Docs
• Video Conferencing: Skype, Google Hangouts, FaceTime, AnyMeeting
• Social Tracking: Hootsuite, Buffer, Iconosquare
• Web Analytics: Google Analytics
• Newsletters: MailChimp, Constant Contact
• Online Payments: PayPal, Braintree