“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.”- (Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company) Data from StatsSA has shown that more than 1,500 businesses closed their doors for good in South Africa last year. This can come as no surprise to anyone who conducts business in South Africa at the moment, with spiralling costs, high interest rates and other tough market conditions that include frequent load shedding at short notice. It is therefore highly likely that all business leaders will go through tough times and for those with start-ups they can often seem insurmountable. If your start-up is one of those failing businesses the first thing you need to do is determine if the company is worth the extra energy, investment and effort required to save it, and if the answer is yes, then take our steps below to ensure that happens. Save or close? The first step to deciding whether to save a company is to work out the root cause of the troubles. Often this will take a team of outsiders, but a conversation with us as your accountants should be the first step. We can help you quickly assess whether your troubles come from external issues such as competition, market conditions or new regulations, or whether they are from internal issues such as poor management, a high level of debt, bad hires or inadequate equipment. Next you need to be brutally honest with yourself. What was it that made you enter the market? What made you unique? Are these things still true? Is your product obsolete? And is your business still capable of turning a profit? Assuming you believe profit is still achievable, then the next step is a full evaluation of the finances, from assets to debits and invoices outstanding, so you can find out just how bad things are. From there, we can help you work out the costs of necessary adjustments. Do you need restructuring? New equipment? Or new staff? What will it cost to fix, and do you have the ability to go through the necessary changes? You will need to carefully consider all these steps. You have invested a lot of effort and emotion into this company, and making these decisions rationally can therefore be hard. Having brought advisors onboard, you now need to actually listen to what they have to say. If you have completed all the steps before this and still want to go on, then ask yourself one final question. Are there alternatives? Is there anyone who would buy the company? A competitor who might consider a merger? And why would one of these options not be better than you keeping things going? It is important to consider all of these options, so that when you commit you know you are on the right path. If, after all of this, you are still determined to save the business, here is what you need to do: Rank your challenges Being in a start-up can be overwhelming.…