New York City is an expensive city to start and operate a small business. My digital agency Boucher + Co. was recently reminded of this fact, after having pursued our first expansion this past June.
We spent the better part of June searching for new, larger office space, and hiring approximately ten part and full-time team members. All sounded great – until it came time to pay for everything. Talk about sticker stock. Our overhead alone – through rent and personnel – more than tripled. Then came the headaches, second thoughts, and lots of stress.
For the first time in a while, I didn’t love what I did every day. Our agency was in over our head – and something had to change. I decided to spend the weekend at the beach and evaluate things. That was the best decision I made in a while.
The solution to our growing pains was simple: grow a leaner agency. One with less overhead. By the beginning of August, we had expanded our offices without greatly increasing our rent (a difficult, but possible feat in NYC), and changed our team structure once again to accommodate our employees and budget.
Small businesses must watch their cash flow religiously. Failure to do so usually means a death sentence for the business sometime within 3-10 months. Overhead cannot consume a majority of a company’s funds. Funds must be available to make business purchases, meet payroll, or acquire vendors or partner companies. Growing a lean company ensures that it is strong, adaptive, and responsive without being expensive. Simply operating a business should not be a costly and stressful process.
Boucher + Co. became lean, and that made all the difference in the world.