#business

In the early days, you’re too small for churn to be a meaningful statistic, but after those first 100 accounts, mitigating churn can help you grow much faster. So how do you know if you should focus on getting new signups or decreasing churn?

When you get started, there are only two things that matter: your customers and your productivity. While it might be helpful to evaluate competitors when getting started, once you start, it’s best to ignore them and do your thing.

As a founder juggling multiple tasks, it’s easy to forget about the business in the face of all of the other product decisions, but you have to factor business and operations into your decisions now.

As a new founder, you’re in a position to design your business and life the way you want to. If the standard way of doing something feels wrong, use it as an opportunity to do the right thing rather than the corporate thing.

Chargebacks will happen. Hopefully you won’t have many, but when you do, it’s important to understand what it means and what you can do about it, if anything.

It’s unfortunate, but not everyone on the internet means well. If you put a payment form online or give people a way to post public content, you’ll eventually get a visit from a spammer or scammer. You must address it, but don’t let it get to you.

It’s hard but rewarding work. Your happiness and satisfaction will largely be a result of your expectations. Expect and plan for slow and steady growth, and be pleasantly surprised if your business grows more quickly.

It’s handy to have some money set aside to get your application off the ground, but you may need less than you think. More importantly, you may have a lot more options for gathering that money. Make sure you understand the pros and cons of whichever path you choose.

When you’re getting started, your personal costs will be your single biggest expense. By reducing your cost of living, you can buy yourself time and reduce your stress while your business gets going.

Once the idea of selling starts to take hold, it can quickly become tempting to follow through. But there are some serious questions to ask yourself to avoid any regrets.

At some point, you’re going to put together a spreadsheet that illustrates your business plan making a million dollars in some random period of time. Remember that these aren’t real numbers, and then get to work.

In the coming years, you’ll face decisions to either pay for a tool that isn’t a perfect fit, or build your own. It’s imperative to recognize that building anything that isn’t a core part of your business will become more of a distraction than a strength.

You’re running a small business and juggling dozens of aspects. You can’t afford time lost to non-critical tasks. Take the time to make a plan, be disciplined, and hold yourself accountable for focused work.

You may have no plans to ever sell, but sometimes life throws you a curveball. Moreover, even if you never sell, being mindful of these aspects of your business will make life easier for the rest of your time running the business.

If reducing your costs is the best way to set up your business, not quitting your day job is the next best. There will come a time when you need to quit, but it will be long after juggling the two is easy.

Paperwork is never any fun, but there’ll be a handful of things you need to set up and keep handy. The critical part is keeping the information to hand and documenting this so it’s not a chore when you need it.