Graeme Donnelly

Waiting too long to launch their product. Launching forces a founder to get the business really going quickly, and you will learn more from your first 50 customers than you ever will from a year of tinkering before launch. It gives you the confidence to commit more time and money into the venture, as well as improve your product from customer feedback. No product is ever likely to remain as it was on the day of launch - most successful products are iterations of an original one - sometimes far apart from the original.

Should I start as a sole trader first before registering a company? Registering a company comes with additional legal responsibility - and sometimes you need to find out whether what you think will work in the market actually will actually do so before registering a limited company. Once you think your product will work, it's better to register your company sooner rather than later - as this allows you to protect your chosen company name, and potentially enter into contracts with larger suppliers or buyers who have rules against trading with sole traders.

The final iteration of the product or service that makes your business successful is unlikely to look like the first iteration. So launch a minimum viable product and gain as much feedback as you can. Try to tailor your product to customer needs as opposed to what is operationally convenient for you - the most important thing is that the product is attractive and can sell in the marketplace. Once you have customer feedback - iterate quickly. You'll often find that one particular feature of a product is the reason it succeeds, so don't be afraid to pivot to whatever the customer wants - even if it means entering an industry you didn't know you were entering when you started out. This is how many of the world's biggest companies started out.