The average start-up is more likely to fail than succeed. It happens for all kinds of reasons, but often it's because newbie entrepreneurs fail to get the basics right, meaning the business is hobbled from the start. But there are many ways to prevent this happening and preparation is key.

Lose the risk

Starting a company is full of risk and eight out of ten start-ups fail. Your job as a founder is to remove as much of that risk as possible as quickly as possible.

For every start-up there are a few big questions you need to answer: Do people really want this? Will they pay for it? Can I actually build it? Will this or that feature work the way I think it will? Once you’ve identified these questions find quick and cheap ways to answer them.

Talk to your customers, design little tests, do back of the envelop finances, learn from what your competitors are doing. Try to turn your guesses into things you KNOW - quickly. Investors will love it because you’re removing the risk for them too.

Shoot the pooch

One reason people avoid asking these hard questions is because they are scared they won’t like the answer. You have probably spent months, if not years thinking about your business idea and so you naturally want people to tell you it’s amazing.

But you need to speak to the people who might tell you it’s terrible and ask questions your scared to know the answer to. Instead of protecting your idea try to kill it. If it stands up to proper testing then you know you’re onto something. (Read Talking To Humans by Giff Constable for more tips).

Avoid taking advice from people like this. They'll tell you anything is brilliant.

Shout about it

Another reason business owners don’t ask tough questions is they believe their idea is so good that someone will steal it. So they keep it secret for as long as possible.

This is a great way to spend months of your life building the wrong thing… slowly. Remember, you want to ask hard questions early - not after you’ve invested lots of time and money building something.

Starting a business is such hard work that people are far more likely to try to help you building it than try to do it themselves. And you need all the help you can get.

Connecting with smart people can be the difference between success and failure early on. So start talking to as many people as possible and build your network. (One note on this: if you have a patentable product talk to a patent lawyer first.)

Solve a real problem

When asking the tough questions you will likely find that your idea isn’t quite right. It may make perfect sense on paper but the real work has a habit of changing things. Chances are you won’t have it right first time, and maybe not second or third time either. But if you’re trying to solve a real problem (one you KNOW people care about) you can keep going back to the problem until you come up with the right solution.

Over promise and over deliver

There is no better test of your business idea than getting someone to pay you for it. It’s a great way to know people want it and are willing to pay for it. But it’s also a great commitment device for you personally - once you’ve actually sold to someone you will naturally pull out all the stops for delivery.

Lots of entrepreneurs get their first order on a promise they don't know for sure they can fulfil. They are selling their vision of a product that doesn’t yet fully exist. If you are in this position back yourself to deliver. After all, if you don’t believe in it no one else will.

Then once you’ve got the order, work like hell to make it incredible and over deliver!