Whether you are just sick of your 9-5 job routine or simply want to be your own boss, entrepreneurship is no longer an unattainable dream for a lucky few. Startups and new businesses are popping up more often than ever. There are about 20,000 monthly new business registrations in Australia.
However, starting your own venture comes with a risk and an uncomfortably high degree of uncertainty. The trend is that more and more people are running their business remotely. The rise of digital nomads and the global gig economy allows people to collaborate from different parts of the world and manage a full-scale business through a computer.
If you are thinking of starting your own and would like to go down the ‘remote culture’ path, there are a few things you should be mindful of to leverage the relatively untested business model wisely.
#1. Make Sure You Have the Right People
Reliance on your team members and employees who you cannot physically monitor means you have to be extra diligent and thorough about vetting them. Role clarity is extremely important. Remote collaboration requires a very structured cadence to ensure smooth communication and alignment. Having real-time access to a single source of truth, a data dashboard tracking progress across all key metrics and projects, is going to be critical as well to accurately assess organisational health.
In order to hire the right people, you need to first understand the workflows and processes your workforce needs to deliver. Being clear about the roles needed can help eliminate chances of you over-hiring or hiring the wrong people.
Many companies easily fall victim to the trap of speed hiring when they want to scale so they don’t have to slow down their growth. But there is such a thing as growing too fast. Quality talent should be prioritised over quantity.
Terminating an employee can cost from $5,000 to $50,000 which isn’t including the cost of backfilling the role. Hasty decisions over people management will cost you — it is cheaper and more efficient to invest time into finding the right candidate that meets all core criteria.
#2. Really Know Your Customers and the Market
Competition is more fierce than ever nowadays. Customer acquisition has gotten much easier and harder at the same time. It is easier to reach a much wider audience thanks to digitisation but it is also so much harder to grab their attention long enough to hook them in. So the ability to compete over the target customers now requires investment and skills far beyond simple customer segmentation.
Thanks to big data you are now able to learn all kinds of things about every user that visits your site or store. You can track their journey almost minute by minute. But can you drive most relevant and critical knowledge about your customers in an environment where 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created every single day?
In addition, you should also know the high-level, macroeconomic view of the industry you will be operating in. Who are the players? What growth trend and trajectory is the industry on?
Having a clear vision for your go-to-market strategy is especially crucial if your business is run remotely as it helps rally your remote workforce around a consistent and aligned north star.
#3. Financial Transparency and Discipline
About 14% of small or medium businesses fail due to financial mismanagement, according to the Australian Centre for Business Growth. It really comes down to how well and timely you are able to track your cash flows. Competitive advantage comes not only from your ability to conquer more market share by better serving your target customers but also from managing profit margin better by consistently finding the right cost-saving opportunities.
For instance, many small retail businesses require drivers and vehicles. Fuel cost is an unreliable cost variable and could be a heavy constraint on your profit margin. Hunting down all the best fuel discounts can quite literally make or break your business sustainability. The challenge would be ensuring your employees are individually incentivised to save money wherever possible even if it requires extra effort from their end. Accurate tracking and timely monitoring of expected costs vs. actual costs can help you assess whether your business is making the most of all the accessible cost savings there are.
