Spend Less Time Worrying About Your Company's Runway — And More Time Rethinking Your Strategy. Here's How.

founders do not want to overspend, view their runway as too short, and feel they cannot build traction with VCs, crowdfunding campaigns or other capital raises. Founders know they must spend to gain the required traction, but it's a volatile risk with unclear returns. As countless founders face this current dilemma, what are the best decisions to make next?

Stop looking at the perceived length of the runway — start looking at strategy

The perceived runway is only what is currently in the bank and a projection, at best, of what financials will look like in the next few quarters. It does not factor in future growth, breakthroughs in funding, and, yes, even disruptions or setbacks.

With so many founders in angst about their perceived short runway, a step back is in order. First, review the MVP (minimum viable product). In its essential elements, is it genuinely viable? Is your startup a copy of others, or is it truly unique? Are the solutions or products offered going to solve problems, disrupt an industry or substantially help in ways not currently offered in the marketplace? If you're not confident, stop and compass-check with outside resources.

What does the correct compass check look like for your startup? Start with a brand evaluation with a reputable brand strategist or innovator with noted industry experience. Why? Your problems with a short runway may simply be key messaging, a revised funnel strategy, or better personas of realistic investors or a customer base.

audience? This is so critical and so often missed. Too many spend too much and get this wrong or are too close to current messaging to see blinders.

Start here to fix the perceived short runway. If the key messaging will not reach the right audience, stop everything else, including current spending, and fix it immediately. Get outside help from the right strategist who can give expert and objective counsel to course-correct key messaging. Following this, use it to your advantage and lead with it. A better call-to-action strategy beats a new product almost every time.

ensure the funnel strategy works. When you launch your new product or service as part of your startup, demonstrate to investors, VCs or your crowdfunding campaign how well the funnel works. If key messaging is right, but funnel strategy is what is causing angst with the perceived short runway, pause and evaluate. It is not enough to drive interest through messaging alone; the funnel must be as close to airtight as possible.

If a funnel strategy is already in place and key messaging is working, continuously analyze results. For product or service sales, implement surveys, get feedback, and respond to and act on reviews. Identify the rate of and reasons for customer churn and continuously improve. Ask customers for product or service feature requests and use this data to gauge and optimize feature affinity. Additionally, ensure that any changes to public-facing marketing assets, especially websites, social media, PR and email, align with the funnel strategy and do not pull your brand off course.

Third, ensure the customer journey process finds ways to build on itself, and finds ways to propel new and existing customers into advocates for your brand. This starts by making an almost seamless journey for customers coming through the funnel. From the basics of making the journey, value proposition, and process simplistic and straightforward, any brand needs to advocate for their customers before a customer advocates for the brand. It only takes one bad experience, or perceived lousy experience with no response, to push a customer and parts of an audience away.