The official stats show that the older and larger your business is, the less likely it is to fail.
But this disguises the fact that growth is a hurdle that many start-ups fail to survive. Expand too soon with the wrong strategy and there’s a good chance you’ll be looking at the job ads before too long.
Greg Hayes, of business advisory firm Hayes Knight, says: “Older doesn’t mean safer – you only have to look at some of the business that have failed in the current year to know this.”
“Your overheads and the amount of funds you need to maintain the business is higher. Too many bad business decisions can put you in an unrecoverable situation.”
“Moving from infancy to maturity normally brings with it some growing pain.”
“You may find that growth is placing pressure on cash and your infrastructure is not adequate to manage increased size.”
“Maturing the business does not happen automatically. It needs to be planned. Forward planning will become more important.”
“In infancy the focus is often on the short term and survival. As the business matures, medium to longer term planning becomes far more important.”
