Benjamin Franklin, the founding father of the United States and also a traveller and an inventor, had famously said, “Beware of little expenses, a small leak will sink a great ship.” This holds true for any business and more so for a start-up. We all know that a majority of start-ups fail because they run out of funds. The longer a start-up survives, the more likely it is that it will succeed. “A start-up needs to survive a certain period to know what really works for it. If it survives, it can afford to make course corrections and get back on track. This makes it very important to manage expenses effectively so that it makes the most of the limited resources at its disposal,” says Arvind Pani, co-founder and CEO of Bengaluru based Reverie Language Technologies, a company that provides regional language capabilities to device manufacturers. Founded in November 2009 and having boots rapped till it raised funds a few months ago, Pani knows how important managing expenses are for a start-up. Siddharth Somaiya, 26, founder of Bao Haus Co, a takeout and delivery joint in south Mumbai, serving bao and internationally inspired pan-Asian street food, agrees. “As start-ups, we spend so much of our working capital towards promotional ideas and creating awareness about the brand in the initial phase that it makes it difficult to track expenses. This makes it even more important to focus on keeping a track of expenses and managing them properly. We take a look at how some start-ups are smartly managing their expenses.