Predicting the future – harnessing the power of foresight analysis and macrotrends

Hindsight is a beautiful thing – how many of us, given a chance, would do things differently? How many opportunities did we fail to grab, and how many mistakes have we made in setting up a business?

We can’t change the past, no one can. What we can do, most of the times, is to learn from the mistakes we made in the past and ensure we don’t repeat them in future.

But mistakes in the life of any entrepreneur are aplenty, and no start-up ever managed to get everything right from the start; not even Steve Jobs managed that, let alone Sir Richard Branson, Mark Zuckerberg or Sir Tim Berners Lee.

Being focused so much (and rightly so) on proving your concept, getting your first prototype right or securing your first round of investment surely makes everything else pale in significance, doesn’t it? No, it doesn’t.

Futureproofing yourself and your start-up – to the best of your abilities – requires foresight, and an analytical overview of the macrotrends that can negatively impact your business, and of those macrotrends you can use to your advantage.

Foresight requires imagination and a deep familiarisation with predictive analysis tools (if you can have access to them). If you don’t have access to such tools (Circklo does have its own Futures Radar that it also makes available to its members), then you need to create a Risk Register and do a lot of reading: pretty much, any market research report that you can get your hands on and that has similarities to what it is that you do as a start-up business.

“What if?” and “Why not?” are your best friends when it comes to futureproofing your business; if you are a pragmatist founder, mostly risk averse, “what if?” should help you identify a lot of the risks you might have to face in future. If you are a creative individual, “why not?” may significantly help you identify future opportunities to exploit or trends you can ride on.

It is very true that as a start-up founder with limited resources and even more limited time, there is only that much you can do. However, the business you are building needs to stand up tomorrow too, not just today.

Any investor you may want to approach is going to be interested in more than your story, the beauty/resilience of your product/service, or how you overcame adversity: they will want to be assured that you are fully prepared to face the future – with all the risks and opportunities it may bring – and ride the wave.

You cannot offer any of these assurances simply by telling a story, no matter how compelling that story might be; you can only do so if you understand the macrotrends that are happening in your industry, and the impact of any wild card that seismic changes might bring. Very few start-ups predicted the global economic effect of the Covid-19 pandemic, and even fewer survived it.

Circklo’s Business Configurator is solely dedicated to sustainable start-ups. We help you configure your start-up for both profit and purpose and, after 12 modules of intensive business coaching, mentoring, dry-pitching, and networking with industry experts, angel investors, venture capitalists and other start-ups in the community, you will see the enormous difference we make to your business: we optimise your business to be investment-ready.

Join our Business Configurator to scale-up your product, and be confident about what it can deliver to your customer base. Apply now