Now that a new year is upon us, everyone is setting out to create a plan of improvement for the next twelve months, whether it’s to lose weight, travel more, or get a new job.
However, if you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, your priorities are probably quite a bit different than the average person’s, which probably means that you new year’s resolutions are different, as well. Maybe you want to build that app you’ve been thinking about. Or maybe you want to network more. Or maybe your goal is loftier, like expanding your company to a new country.
Whatever your goals are for the new year, you may have countless ideas on tasks you want to achieve by this time next year, which can seem pretty daunting, right?
If you’re still trying to figure out what you need to work on this coming year as a budding founder, below are a few ideas to help you get started.
1. Launch a Startup
If you’ve already started a company, than you can obviously skip this step (unless you’ve got the time/energy/money to launch another company and establish yourself as a serial entrepreneur. Remember: think big!). But if you’ve been talking about how great of an entrepreneur you’d be or how your product will change the world but haven’t actually started any of these things or how you’re ready to quit your job and become your own boss, now is the time to begin.
Keep in mind one thing: entrepreneurship is both harder and easier than you think:
Harder, because you will spend the majority of your waking hours taking on far more than you can handle for the next several years, if your startup even lasts that long.
Easier, because there are now more resources than ever to help you start an amazing company. In fact, below are just a few of the resources that the Founder Institute offers that you can use to launch your dream startup:
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Subscribe to our Founder Insight newsletter, featuring exclusive startup blog posts, videos, and more.
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Attend a free startup event in your city, where you can network with other entrepreneurs near you and get feedback on your idea.
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Join a Founder Institute program in your city, where you’ll get even more mentorship and support from a global network of startup experts.
2. Establish New Goals for Your Startup
You’ve probably learned plenty of lessons about what it takes to launch and run a strong startup in the past twelve months, which means it is now time for you to put those lessons to work and clearly define what it is your startup needs to achieve this year.
(If you haven’t yet set aside time to meet with your team and tabulate the previous year’s learnings, this blog post is a great start: How to Finish the Year Strong - And Start Next Year Even Stronger.)
Building and maintaining a startup is hectic, which means that you have probably spent most of last year making things up as you went along. Now, however, is the time to plan ahead and create some contingencies for when things go bad.
What does your startup need to work on over the next year? Do you need to release a product update? Close a major sale? Hire new employees? Fire old ones?
Or maybe your goals for this year are a little smaller - but no less trivial. For example, maybe your goal is to cut back on the number of meetings your team has. Or maybe you need to boost employee morale by having more team outings.
Whatever your goals are for the new year, make sure that they are based on your previous successes and failures, and that you create an actionable plan to achieve them.
3. Keep Learning New Things
If your company is already up and running, then it probably means that you’re a pretty smart person, as the early days of a startup require founders to master numerous skills just to get an idea off the ground.
However, don’t let your existing experience, expertise, and knowledge get in the way of your pursuit to learn even more new things.
This year, treat your brain to some new knowledge by investing in your personal education. This doesn’t mean that you should necessarily enroll in school (running a company AND studying for exams is too much to ask of one person). Rather, take the time to learn a new skill or discipline.
For example, if you’re more of a marketing person, spend some time learning about coding, as this can help you develop a better understanding of your product. Or, if you’re more of a technical person, learn about the marketing side of your company, as this will give you a deeper insight into how your company is perceived by the general public. Reflect on what you don’t know, and how that knowledge might come in hand when running your company.
With the wealth of online tools, resources, and tutorials (many of them free), there is no excuse for you not to constantly expand your set of skills. Remember, the wiser you are, the more informed decisions you will make for your company.
4. Manage Your Finances Better
This is resolution is always true, regardless of the time of year, as having a strong a financial plan will only help your company grow and survive tough economic conditions, but now is a great time to put extra emphasis on this goal anyway.
As if the process of launching a startup wasn’t unpredictable enough, you never know when the economy will take a dive unexpectedly. Even the best pundits and economists can be wrong, so it pays to ensure that your company’s finances are in order.
If you’ve identified your company’s mistakes from the last year and pinpointed what you need to work on to improve your company’s health in the coming year, you are now ready to create a new financial plan. Below are a few points to keep in mind during this process:
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Ensure that you’ve paid off all of your company’s debts. Even if this means that things will be tight for a couple of months, nothing beats the feeling of starting a new year debt-free.
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Predict your startup’s upcoming revenues, future operating costs, and the assets you’ll need to meet the demand for the coming year.
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Look at your spendings from the previous year and cut whatever didn’t provide value for your company.
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Create a contingency for any financial emergency your company might face this year by identifying potential challenges and backup plans for each.
5. Focus Only on the Things that Need Fixing
If your company has shown considerable progress in the previous year, that probably means you’re well on your way to even more progress in the coming year, which is great news.
However, your startup’s continued expansion, while great, can lead to numerous challenges, including one major one:
Distractions.
The more your company grows, the more fires you’ll have to put out, which means the more time, energy, and money you’ll have to expend keeping your company alive.
To help ensure that you don’t let distractions keep your company from failing, take the time to remind yourself and your team members of the primary goals for the year. If anything comes along that doesn’t contribute to one or more of those goals, don’t pursue it.
If, for example, your main goal is to expand across more cities in the United States, but you have a chance to expand to cities in Europe, as well, focus on your attaining your initial goal, as expanding your services to a global level when you have neither the manpower or the resources to maintain that reach is a surefire way to kill your startup.
Too many promising companies have died because they got too big too fast, so it’s essential that you learn from their mistakes and take the necessary precautions to prevent your company from overextending its grasp. While setting lofty goals for your startup is certainly admirable, those goals have to be attainable.
6. Maintain Your Physical, Mental, and Emotional Well-Being
You may wonder why your personal health is so important to the health of your company, but the reality is that a better you means a better company. Think about it: if you’re constantly tired, frustrated, or stressed, this will have a huge negative impact on the way you run your startup.
Being physically unfit will make you more tired throughout the incredibly long days of launching and running a startup, and being in a bad mood will mean you are more distracted more irritable to be around. These are states you need to avoid being in.
However, there are a few ways that you can ensure that you are in your best condition to build a great company.
For example, at the beginning of the new year, plan out at least one vacation for yourself, preferably one in which you disconnect from your smartphone and computer. This will give you something to look forward to, and any opportunity to mentally and emotionally unwind from the pressures of entrepreneurship should be taken.
While exercising and dieting more are on most people’s lists of New Year’s resolutions, go ahead and add them to yours, as a healthier lifestyle means more energy and better moods during the hustle and bustle of keeping your company afloat.
7. Remember Why You Started a Company
The path of entrepreneurship is fraught with challenges, detours, and unexpected hurdles, and is difficult enough to scare away even the toughest people. With all of the fires you put out on regular basis, it’s easy to forget why you became an entrepreneur in the first place.
However, now that a new year is upon us, there is no better time to renew your entrepreneurial vows and regain some of that awesome attraction to risk and opportunity. Forget about the failures and mistakes of the past year and focus on the possibilities the next twelve months have to offer.
For now is the time to recapture the excitement of building something no one else has.
Now is the time to embark on an adventure of innovation, creation, and disruption.
Now is the time to break old things, and devise new ones.
Because if you haven’t done it already, when will you?
Now, that’s when.
