Before day one: the minimum foundations

Decide who your first customer is and what exactly you are offering them. Open a separate business bank account, set up basic bookkeeping and ask a qualified professional which registrations and licences apply to you. Do not leave these for later; they are much harder to untangle once money is moving.

Also write down your personal runway: how many months you can operate before you need income. This figure influences every decision that follows.

Month one: get to a first sale

Your only real aim in month one is to sell to a handful of real customers, even if the product is rough. Make a list of fifty people or businesses who might buy and contact them personally. Take notes on every conversation, especially objections and questions.

Keep the offer simple. One product or service, one price, a clear way to order. You can add options once you know what people ask for.

Do not wait for the website or brand to be perfect. A phone, a simple price sheet and a clear explanation of the problem you solve are enough to begin. Polish can follow once you know what customers value.

  • A one-page description of your offer and who it is for
  • A list of fifty prospects and a simple tracking sheet
  • A basic way to take orders and receive payment
  • A target for your first five customers

Month two: deliver, listen and fix

Serve your first customers as carefully as you can and ask them for direct feedback. What did they like? What was confusing? Would they buy again, and would they recommend you? Fix the most repeated complaints first.

Begin writing down how you do the work: steps, timings, quality checks. This is the start of a process you can later teach to someone else. Also record your true costs per sale so you can check that the price leaves a margin.

Month three: find what repeats

By now you should see patterns. Which customers bought fastest? Which channel brought them? Which part of the work took most of your time? Double down on the combination that works and drop experiments that went nowhere.

Set up a simple weekly routine: a fixed hour to review cash, sales, enquiries and tasks. A new business with no routine is run by whichever problem shouted loudest.

Keep a simple weekly log of hours spent. Many new owners find that most of their time goes into tasks that do not bring in customers, and the log makes that visible so you can change it.

The 90-day review

At the end of the period, hold a review with yourself, or ideally with a mentor or trusted adviser. Look at revenue, cash left, customer feedback and what you now know that you did not at the start. Ask: should I continue as planned, change the offer or customer, or stop?

Then write a plan for the next 90 days with only two or three priorities. Hiring, branding, a bigger space and new products can wait until you have proof that the core works.

In the first 90 days, the goal is learning at low cost, not looking established. Set up the basics, sell early, listen closely and review honestly at the end. If you would like help structuring the plan for your own idea, we can work through it together.