Rising above the swell - starting up a business in a recession

By Stuart Jolley, founder of Wingman

Starting up a new business can seem a daunting task at the best of times. The market is swollen with ideas and keeping your head above the choppy waters can seem like an impossible mission.

Every existing business appears to have a wealth of experience; contacts, and nous, so just getting started is a huge obstacle. What’s important is to shut out the noise and focus on what you want to achieve.

The next step is to get your head down and work hard at reaching your goals. However, hard work of course will only get you...

...so far. You need innovation and importantly, you need to know your market.

You also need good timing as choosing when to launch is key. This can be hard, especially if funds are low and you are gagging to get stuck in. Launching a summer product in the winter won’t get you anywhere and may lose you investor’s confidence.

Even if your product is unique and its market entry timed to a tee, there are still other factors to consider. You can be too ambitious, or not ambitious enough.

Being a startup does have its advantages though. New businesses can often be braver and try things that larger, more established companies can’t. Take viral adverts for example, which can potentially be a risk. Your relative anonymity can also allow you to test the waters of your markets to see how they respond in advance of a main product release.

Maybe, for example, the small size of your business will make it more attractive to a certain crowd where being unknown is the ‘in’ thing. Think how many bands are popular because people get respect for having ‘found’ them. At the start, being underground can be cool and even buy you... continued on page two >

 

 

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