Starting a business is never easy. Running and growing one is another challenge altogether. Whether it’s your first company or your fourth, the risks and opportunities are always boundless, and so is the pressure to make it work.
While there are a million different things that can go wrong with an emerging business, there are some common business mistakes that get in the way of almost every entrepreneur. One particularly nasty one is cash flow management.
Maintaining a healthy cash flow is critical for any business’s longevity and success, but it’s also a problem because cash flow concerns are never an immediate priority. Don’t get me wrong, most entrepreneurs do take cash flow management seriously, but it often takes a back seat, overshadowed by that critical meeting after lunch or the upcoming product launch. As a consequence, businesses start bleeding money—not all at once, but slowly over the months, until we get to a point where the flow stops.