Startup to business transition middle market business life cycle stages

STARTUP TO Business Transition

Excelling through the 5 business life cycle stages

Startup

Transition

Maturity

Launch

GROWTH

Businesses—like people—progress through stages. What begins with the spark of an idea, grows and matures until the time is right to step away. While your journey may not travel a straight line, most middle market businesses face common challenges and opportunities along the way. Wherever you are in your business life cycle, aligning your strategy to what lies ahead is the best determinant of success.

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With a strong roadmap, it’s time to put your operations into place. A sustainable business requires finance, human resources, technology and product development, and sales and marketing. Do you have the talent in-house to enable your people to do what they do best? Do you have enough cash to accelerate forward momentum? There are so many moving parts.

Take off here

Propelling your business

Launch:

Understand what you need to launch successfully.

Start something big

Mapping a complete and realistic path now is priority one.

When you’re ready to turn a brilliant idea into a functioning business, you need to think about the basics: Your definition of success, expectations, the skills of those around you, the competition you’ll face, cash flow and the business structure that can best help you achieve your professional and personal goals. One important decision you need to make at this stage is business entity type, which can affect your tax strategy significantly.

Turning inspiration into reality

STARTUP:

Get into high gear

Assess your needs as you grow.

With success, you may suddenly find yourself so deep in running the business that it’s hard to keep the big picture in perspective and your passion at the heart of your work. It’s a good time to step back to see how you and your staff can better manage your time and talent. Should you outsource business functions where it makes sense? You also may want to assess digital solutions to help you scale up.

Structuring for long-term success

Growth:

Light a fire under your business

Reevaluate your business model.

As growth slows and margins thin, there’s no room for complacency. The first instinct is to focus on cost containment, but now is the time to look for new opportunities and revenue streams. Innovation is key. It could be a chance to re-energize your business model and restart your growth stage.

Looking for ways to reignite growth

Maturity:

Plan for succession

The time has come to transition your business.

Now that you’ve achieved your goals, it’s time for you to step away. This stage can happen at any time in the business life cycle, not just after maturity; it may be after your launch or growth stage. The best advice is not to wait—planning your business transition years in advance will help ensure you leave on your terms and can celebrate your success. At this final stage of the journey for you and your family, focus on what you hope for your business when you’re no longer running it and how you’ll manage the personal wealth you’ve acquired through all your hard work.

Planning a fulfilling ending

Business Transition:

No business owner has all the answers—or even knows all the questions to ask. Whether you’re just starting out or in the midst of an exciting journey, equip yourself with knowledge and get the help you need to make your dreams become reality. Get answers to your questions in our ebook, “A guide to business ownership.”

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Transition

Maturity

GROWTH

Launch

Startup

No business owner has all the answers— or even knows all the questions to ask. Whether you’re just starting out or in the midst of an exciting journey, equip yourself with knowledge and get the help you need to make your dreams become reality. Get answers to your questions in our Q&A, “Questions at every stage of the busness life cycle.”