I keep seeing the same three things take down otherwise serious founders.

1. Staying informal too long. No registration, no business account, every naira or cedi mixed with personal cash. You cannot invoice properly, you cannot get paid by a real customer, and you cannot see if the business is actually making money.

2. Building in private. Polishing the product, the logo, the website — while nobody has paid you. If you cannot name the last person who gave you money for this, you do not have a business yet. You have a project.

3. Hiring and expanding before the sale is repeatable. Staff, extra locations, extra SKUs. That is how cash disappears. One offer, one customer type, one way to get paid. Repeat it until it is boring. Then grow.

The order that actually works: get legal enough to take money cleanly, sell this week, then add systems only after money is coming in.

If you are starting an SME and you are stuck on which of these you are in, say so. I will tell you the next move.