Great news – you survived your first year in business! You’ve worked very hard to get to this point, probably sacrificed a lot of your personal life to the grind as well, and that means you should take the time to celebrate right now. 

But once you’ve patted yourself on the back and you’re ready to get back to work, it’s time to focus on the future. Indeed, the more you know now about where you want to go and how you’re going to get there, the more successful you’re going to be at making it to the second year and beyond. 

What’s the Next Step?

So, what now? Well, what’s gone right with your business so far? What do people love, and what have you received the most good feedback on? Because this is where to focus your attention from now on. Sure, it’s good to analyze where you’ve gone wrong, but you need to keep an eye on what’s succeeding to stay in the game.

Why? Because this is what the market wants from you. This is what they’re buying from you. And if you can’t innovate something similar, or something just as valuable, demand is going to dry up long before the supply. It might take some time to figure out where to go next, but you’ve got that kind of time right now. Use it wisely. 

Talk to Those Involved

If there’s anyone other than you currently involved in your company, be sure to talk to them before making any big decisions. Whether you’ve got a partner you run it with or a couple shareholders who own small stakes, run your thoughts by them and come to a mutual agreement on what the best next step is. 

Indeed, this is also your chance to find out how these people feel about the company’s progress, and their own future within it. This could even be the point at which you need to know How to Dissolve a Partnership, to ensure the process is smooth and does not interrupt your success at such a crucial stage in your journey. 

You Might Need to Expect the Worst

Alright, so this one is definitely far from ideal, and it’s something that (understandably so) no one wants to think about, but unfortunately, you need to prepare and expect the worst. Sometimes, something might really hit you or your business. This could be a personal economic downturn; this could be an economic downturn on a local scale (like a natural disaster), a global scale (like COVID or a recession), legal (like an accident), or even personal, like bereavement or getting injured.  

That’s why it’s so important to prepare for the worst because you truly don’t know what the worst could even be. You have to think of future payments, your future, and how you can financially manage the future of your business, too. They say a business tends to survive for about five years until it goes down the drain, and preparing for the worst will help this out tremendously.

Revisit Your Objectives

What did you want to achieve during your first year? What made you the business you are today, and how far have you come to get to this position? This is where you revisit your original business plan, look over the objectives you outlined when you first started, and evaluate just how well you’ve hit them each time. 

After all, if you can’t see the progress on the journey, you’ll soon get lost. You don’t want to circle back on yourself, nor keep doing the same thing every time you come up with an idea. Check your old objectives, make some new ones, and invest deeply in this sense of flexibility as you move further and further into your second year of operations. 

Business plans should change with the times. If you’ve found success so soon in your journey, keep the momentum going.