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5 secrets to a launching successful startup company

Quietly daydreaming about starting your own company? Before you get too excited, though, you should know what you are up against: About half of small businesses do not make it to their fourth year.

We looked at businesses that soared and failed, and listened to serial entrepreneurs about what they wish they had known when they were starting up. Here are their secrets.

If you are a sole proprietor, find B2B partners — don’t reinvent the wheel. 

You may be offering your one-of-a-kind rum-dipped peanut-doodle cookies to market, but that doesn’t mean you need to build your own store and construct your own vending machines to sell them. Better to rely on existing infrastructure and expertise.

Be prepared: It will take longer to launch than you think — and there are no days off.

Contrary to what Tim Ferris is selling, there is no four-hour workweek for budding entrepreneurs.

“No one ever told me that I would be trading my 50-hour workweek for a 100-plus hour workweek when I first started my company,” Roger Bryan, of Enfusen Digital Marketing, told the Muse. “The one piece of advice I would give new entrepreneurs is to plan on investing all of your time and then some if you plan on being successful.”

Protecting yourself from liability — and getting insurance — can’t be an afterthought.

If you are selling food and someone gets sick; if you are giving advice and someone loses money; if you are selling a product and it is defective and hurts someone — you are liable.

Setting up a limited liability corporation separates you (and your personal money and assets) from your company’s money. Someone cannot come after your personal assets when trying to sue the business. 

Competition is good and advisers are a must.

Startup activity is growing: Entrepreneurship, as measured by revenue and number of employees, is up in 2016, according to the Kauffman index of startup activity. That follows an upward swing that started in 2015; in 2014 the startup activity index was at its lowest point in the last 20 years. This should motivate — not discourage you. 

Marketing isn’t what you think it is.

Let’s say your business is struggling and you have a little extra cash. Should you put it toward marketing or investing in technology? The smart money is on technology — and innovation.

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