Starting a business can be daunting. Where do you begin, when should you register with the HMRC, and how much market research should you conduct before developing your prototype? These are just one of many questions you may be asking yourself within a few weeks of starting up.
While juggling all these challenges it can be difficult to see the bigger picture. Having a hairy, audacious goal as long-term vision can help you stay focused and motivated, getting to where you want to be more quickly and helping you scale in the longer term.
That is why, following the launch of the successful Scaleup Summit in 2017, the Newcastle Startup Week (NSW) team have decided to bring the summit back to NSW 2019.
The Newcastle Scaleup Summit will provide SMEs with advice on how to take their business to ‘the next level’ whilst inspiring younger and aspiring entrepreneurs to consider the bigger picture of their startup journey. This will involve the development of a ‘growth mindset’, a leadership culture and a strong vision – alongside the provision of practical advice on marketing, HR and more.
So why is this sense of vision and scale so important? Firstly, it can help entrepreneurs establish a sense of proposed direction which is crucial for long-term business development and fostering trust with key stakeholders. Whether you employ people in your business or whether you are working with other organisations, vision and direction matters. It can help you inspire others, establish more credibility, and better navigate opportunities for business growth. For example, a clear vision can help you understand what areas your business should remain headstrong in and what areas you may be able to be more flexible in when discussing new opportunities and partnerships, therefore decreasing the risk of mission drift. When tied for time, it can also help you determine which opportunities are best to pass on to and which ones to embrace, decreasing the risk of being preoccupied with activities that don’t really move the business forward.
Furthermore, a clear vision and sense of direction can help your business obtain funding when needed, satisfying investor preferences for well-considered exit strategies. In addition, a vision can help inspire and recruit talent and, when faced with financial hurdles, can help your organisation decide which activities to cut down on when needed.
All in all, having a long-term vision of scale for your organisation (with room for flexibility), can help you time manage different activities and determine what is most important for your business to achieve your concept of ‘success’. Of course, visions can be changed and it might be that you will have to change yours following new opportunities and knowledge, which is part of being flexible and responding to changing market demands.
To learn more about developing a growth mindset and scaling up, book your ticket for our NSW Scaleup Summit here.