Building a business from scratch is hard. According to some studies, almost 85% of startups fail before their first anniversary and the two most cited reasons for startup failure are: lack of product-market fit and startups running out of money.
Most startups don't get enough time to launch and validate their products and iterate if things don't go as planned. Because doing so is expensive and most startups run out of money. However, founders who understand things and can see beyond line do things differently. They keep their burn rate low and work hard to stay in the game for a longer period of time.
Most successful founders are long runners. 6-10 years to build a company is normal. Fahim Mashroor, Co-founder and CEO BDjobs.com said, BDjobs's total burn was in few lakhs for first three years. It makes sense because we have seen online job portals going out of business while BDjobs thrived over the time.
As a founder your most important job is to keep your company alive and one of the ways of doing so is by not running out of money. Below infographic, brought to you by SmartKompare, gives a few ideas to start with on the road to saving money as a startup.
How not to die
It is hard when a startup fails, especially for founders. Nikki Durkin of 99dresses wrote in her Medium post: "Let me tell you — failure fucking sucks. If I would have failed fast, early and often then I would have given up 99dresses years ago when, in 2011, I travelled to my parent’s place in the countryside of Australia, locked myself away in my room and cried for what seemed like an entire week."
And most startups fail because they burn too much cash and run out of money to survive and they fail to raise next round. In the world of startup you buy time by spending money and it is important to be careful about how you spend. Be frugal, you would be better off.
