Congratulations, you’ve set up your company
What started as a dream of working for yourself… has now become structure, name, and legal reality.
And now comes the part almost no one prepares for.
Did you hire someone? Or are you still in that quiet phase where everything depends only on you?
Maybe you’re looking at the market and thinking: “it’s hard to hire right now.”
Maybe you’re looking at the numbers and deciding: “better play it safe and stick to a minimum salary as manager… or IAS, because I still don’t know how this will go.”
And without noticing, a pattern starts to form.
The company account grows.
The personal account shrinks.
And the boundary begins to disappear.
Fuel. Meals. Materials. Small everyday expenses.
Everything starts flowing through the company.
You’re not alone. This is common. Too common…
But there is a turning point that separates survival mode from real business growth.
The critical point
When you stop distinguishing what is business strategy… from what is personal comfort.
And that only becomes visible through three simple lenses:
- EBITDA → your real ability to generate margin
- Client debt / receivables → how predictable your cash inflow is
- Revenue stability vs spikes → how steady your system really is
When these three are unclear, salary becomes protection.
When they are clear, salary becomes a decision.
The difficult challenge
Now comes the real test.
First, build a system where your company holds enough cash to cover 12 months of salaries.
A full year.
And crucially, without relying on future invoicing.
More importantly, without relying on hope.
Because at this level, liquidity is not comfort — it is structure.
In fact, the logic behind this is not new. Large financial structures, and even companies like Microsoft, have historically maintained strong liquidity buffers. As a result, they ensure stability even during volatile cycles.
The final question
So, are you really running a company…
or are you simply financing next month’s survival?
Because ultimately, the definition of growth shifts here.
At first, growth looks like selling more.
However, at a certain point, that is no longer the metric that matters.
Instead, real growth becomes the ability to stop living at the edge of the next payment.
See you later,
Ana Coelho
