Who will you be talking to?
Are you ready to talk to them every day for the next few years?
Your target customer is going to be your daily life.
Whether it's developing a product that fits their needs or selling them a service/product, you'll be talking to them every day.
Disclaimer: even if you manage to quickly recruit people to handle sales, the product... you will always be on the front line!
So you need to be passionate about your subject and your people in the long run.
Do you have a clear awareness of the issues of your business model?
B2B, B2C, or B2B2C?
B2C: To sell, you'll have a marketing focus. Targeted or mass market.
Your daily routine: online/offline advertising, content strategy, visuals, social networks, etc...
B2B: To sell, you will have a sales focus.
Your daily routine: sales presentations, inbound/outbound, cold outreach, pitch sales, tenders, etc...
Whatever the scheme, you will have :
- ad hoc investments to make
- key metrics to follow
- dedicated mechanisms to set up.
No need to reinvent the wheel, but it is better to be aware of the implications of the chosen model.
Does the financial model suit you in the long term?
Transactional or recurring sales?
High margin or low margin?
Transactional revenue
Ex: real estate, retail, professional services, etc...
Your annual turnover is never secured, you start from 0 each year.
Recurring turnover
Ex : subscriptions, Saas models, etc...
Your turnover is cumulative, and you start each year with a financial mattress already secured.
High margin VS low margin
Your focus will be on high-end or on volume.
Consequences:
- Your financial management is not the same at all:
- Cash level
- WCR
- Investment arbitrages
- Etc
The level of stress is not the same either...
Are you a valuation entrepreneur or a dividend entrepreneur?
You want to build a VSE/SME that aims to generate cash every year.
Eventually you sell, based on sector comparables, with mechanics that decorrelate the performance of the company from your own person, OR you set up a transmission logic.
You want to set up a structure that values itself, to lead to an exit (resale to a corporate / sector consolidation or IPO).
In the 2 hypotheses, the financing and development strategies are not at all the same.
Knowing that there is a whole spectrum of application models: tech start-ups, SMEs in traditional sectors, but also franchising, the takeover of a healthy company or one under restructuring, etc.
