If I started over in business, these are the 6 things I'd do ... (374)
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What would you do if you had to start your business all over again? In this episode, I'm breaking down exactly what I'd do if I had to start my business from scratch. No audience, no clients, no shortcuts, just the six things that would be non-negotiable in starting over.
In this episode, I'm sharing the practical steps I'd focus on and the mistakes I'd avoid. If you're starting fresh or thinking about your next move, this episode will give you a clear roadmap.
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If I started my business from scratch today, these are the six things that I would do to get it off the ground. I have been in business and run my main business, Alice Bendham Limited, for over 10 years now. And so whilst the very start of that journey feels quite a way away, I was just 17 years old, a very naive, optimistic version of myself. I can definitely look back and see not just kind of what worked and what I did that helped the business to grow, but also the things that probably I wish I'd done a bit differently or ultimately I wish I could kind of go back and maybe share with myself as reminders. When I'm working with clients or even just speaking to people who are kind of at this early stage of business, these are also the things that I kind of wish that I could share with them. So if that is where you are at, I really hope this episode feels supportive for you. I would also say even if you're not in the phase of like initially starting a business, these principles, these tips that I'm going to share with you, I think are applicable to any phase of like starting something, whether you're starting like a whole business or just in a business that's already established, starting perhaps a new project or starting a new offer or starting a new part of your business, getting something off the ground is ultimately what you're doing in that first phase. And these are the six things I would say to anyone who wants to make that happen. As we move into these tips, I want us to define what we're actually trying to do when we are starting a business in in that first phase. When I say the word phase, what I'm kind of talking about there is like what period of growth are we actually in? I really like to kind of name when I'm, you know, building things myself, but also when I'm working with clients or kind of analyzing another business from an external perspective, like what phase are we in? It helps to then almost give an understanding of like, okay, if we're there, then this is what matters and this is what we're aiming for. I kind of see it that in business, we have three key phases. We've got starting, we've got growing and we've got scaling. Now between those phases, we might have periods where we're sustaining and that scaling period can look like a whole load of different things. That's almost where the options become quite endless. Some people scale by streamlining things, by pivoting, by diversifying. But ultimately, when I break it down, those are kind of the three phases I see businesses move through. We've got your starting phase, which is what we're talking about in this episode. Ultimately, that's all about getting things off the ground, moving from a place of nothing existing to the initial structure of a business. We then are allowed to move or not allowed, but we just do move into the phase of growing. We would go right, the structure is there, that initial validation is there. We're not working now with a blank piece of paper. Now let's fill out as much as we can within this structure we've created. Now let's get to max capacity. Let's make the most out of this business model that we started to grow. Let's kind of really see what this business is capable of. That then allows us to move into that final stage, which I think is just a constant stage where you're moving between sustaining and scaling. Scaling being where you go right, we've hit this kind of max capacity in the business. Where do we go from here? How do we want to now take this to the next level? Are we pivoting? Are we diversifying? Are we just streamlining and simplifying with what we've already got? Those are the three phases of growth I see businesses move through. The reason that I think it's helpful to define what season you're in is so that you can understand for yourself what success looks like. One of the worst things that you can do in business is tune into a vision and strategies and noise which is not aimed for you. If you are in the phase of starting a business, hearing perhaps advice or insights around what it takes to scale a business, whilst it might be thought provoking and interesting, ultimately probably isn't going to be that helpful for you. And the vision and the definition of success for a period like scaling is going to look wildly different to what we're trying to do when we're starting. I've seen it before where people are on day one of their business and they're worrying about how I'm going to make sure that this is diversified enough and scalable. And how do I make sure that I've got all of the automations possible? And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, like own the phase you're in, put the blinkers on. The way I see it is that when you're starting a business, your definition of success is less
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