The first year or two of any startup is the most challenging when you are taking on new employees, implementing new processes, and making those tweaks to the product to ensure that it finally does what it’s supposed to do. Once everything is fixed, now you can break even with your finances. But while you might find it tempting to enjoy this period of time, the next challenges are on the horizon. There are more important aspects of business to focus on now that the fundamentals have been fixed. So, what are the next pieces of the puzzle to focus on?

Structuring Your Finances

Right now, you should have a system in place that helps you to keep tabs of the numbers and financial trends. Cash flow is something that so many small businesses have no idea how to keep track of, which is why it’s vital for you to put something in place right now. You’re at the point where your business is small enough that you are able to keep an eye on everything effectively, once it gets to a certain point where your business is bigger, attempting to keep track of everything can be that much more difficult. Hire an accountant! If you don’t have the finances, use a simple program to put all the figures onto.

Automating Back Office Processes

Automation is one of the key buzzwords in any developing business now. Learning to automate the back office processes, from email marketing to simple customer based approaches, will save you so much time and effort. Once a handful of processes are automated, you will see a significant change in how your business runs. It will before the better, but implementing automated processes requires an investment approach, and the right technology. CRM systems can be cheap, and can be effective, but it’s important for you to look at what will benefit your business as far as automation is concerned.

Monitoring Trends

You’ve made it this far with determination and hard work, now it’s time to look around you and learn how best to keep afloat in an uncertain landscape. There are so many different changes in the world that will affect your business, and so it is vital for you to stay on current trends within your industry, but also have an eye towards the future. Implementing financial forecasting in Excel is something that can benefit your business right now, by ensuring you have the best prevention methods in place should problems arise. Trends are always going to come and go, which is why you will be in favor one day, but not the next. Keep on top of trends, and they will benefit you.

After you’ve broken even, there is a sense of relief, because you’ve got to this point with sheer gusto and blood, sweat and tears. It’s now time for you to utilize the lessons you’ve learnt that got you this far. While you have proven successful with a limited amount of knowledge and a skeleton staff, now is when you flesh out your structure, to turn your company into a force to be reckoned with.