What Must An Entrepreneur Assume When Starting A Business?
As a business owner or entrepreneur, you must assume that you’ll struggle, fail, and doubt yourself as you try to grow your business. You’ll waste a ton of time, your employees may not care, people will judge and criticize you, and you’ll likely need to seek help from a startup mentor—probably several startup mentors. However, the more consistent your efforts are and the longer you’re in business, the easier things will become.
Starting a business isn’t a simple thing to do. After all, if building a company was easy, then a whole lot more people would do it.
Fortunately, the reward for building your own company is worth every sleepless night. You’ll be your own boss and have the rewards that come from pursuing big challenges.
In this article, we’ll discuss five things entrepreneurs must assume when starting a business.
You’ll Fail Many Times
As an entrepreneur, expect to fail a lot. Growth and success come with failure and, if you’re not failing, then you’re probably being too cautious. Failing is the best way to understand your startup business, especially if you take away lessons from every failure.
Many entrepreneurs assume that they’ll simply start a business and customers will flow right in. You’ll be immensely disappointed when you learn this isn’t always the case. Starting a successful business is daunting, and early failure makes most entrepreneurs quit.
Which means one of the keys to success is to be learning sometimes from each time you fail. When one aspect of your business isn’t working, ask yourself why things aren’t going according to plan. Once you pinpoint the reason why, you can then take the appropriate corrective actions.
For instance, maybe your business isn’t attracting any customers. Do you have a solid positioning statement? Did you market your company so that consumers know about your brand? Maybe you should start leveraging social media marketing and see if business improves. Did sales pick up? If not, what other marketing strategies can you use to bring in customers?
It’s essential for entrepreneurs to know that the journey of entrepreneurship is full of trial and error.
Further, you must know that growth comes from failing. Most people are afraid to fail, which means they constantly avoid taking risks. Your startup mentors will help you decide which risks are necessary to take, which you can skip, and how to minimize the dangers.
For many people, the hardest part of entrepreneurship is getting started. However, it’s imperative to know that the most challenging things in life often have the potential for greater rewards. Just do the heavy lifting first and success will follow!
You’ll Need More Money Than You Expected
No matter the size of your business, you’ll need more money than you originally thought to get things going. Something will come up that you didn’t plan on, and it’s usually expensive. When building your business, do your best to secure both Seed Capital and Series A funding when the time is right. Another trick is to plan your business’s expected finances for the next five years, and add an additional 30 to 50% to that total, to account for unexpected expenses.
For instance, imagine you want to open a pizza restaurant. You may have carefully planned out your expenses, but you didn’t expect your pizza oven to break down. Having an emergency fund can help you repair or replace the oven quickly, minimizing the negative effect on your business.
You’ll Need Help
At some point, it’s good to accept help from experienced entrepreneurs in order to take your business to the next level. So even though you might want to do everything on your own, be willing to work with a startup mentor and accept help from experienced business owners to make your life easier. The right startup mentor can help you grow your business at a much faster rate than would be possible if you tried to do it all on your own.
Consistency Breeds Success
One reason many entrepreneurs give up is that success isn’t instant. To succeed in entrepreneurship, you must consistently work towards reaching your goals. Don’t compare your journey with another person’s because they’re on a different path than you.
Most people don’t see the hard work it takes to build a profitable business. Instead, they see the financial reward, and then assume that building a successful business happens overnight; which can lead to new entrepreneurs feeling discouraged when they don’t see results fast enough.
That’s why it’s imperative to know that success and growth isn’t a straightforward process. You’ll need to work hard in the early stages, often with little results to show for what you’ve done. Eventually though, your hard work will pay off and you’ll start to reap the benefits of everything you’ve put into your business.
But keep in mind that it’s imperative to find a pace that works perfectly for you. If you build a business too slowly, you’ll likely never succeed as you may get bored or the markets you want to target will grow and change. And if you go too fast, you may burn and decide to quit before seeing any results. So, find a pace that works for you and your business - one that keeps you moving forward through regular action, but doesn’t act as a drain on your physical and emotional energy.
You May Not Make Any Profits For At Least Two Years
Many startup businesses don’t generate significant profits for the first two to five years of business. That’s because young entrepreneurs often use any revenue they get during that time to pay off initial startup expenses, or to reinvest back into the business as a way to fuel further growth.
Even a business venture that seems highly lucrative will have multiple startup expenses. Thus, in the first few years of business, your revenue will likely need to go towards covering those initial costs, such as bank loans and credit card charges, in addition to monthly operating expenses.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, there are many things an entrepreneur must assume when starting a new business. You’ll likely fail many times, but failure is an excellent teacher; especially if you learn from your mistakes and take corrective action.
Building a business is a daunting task, but you can succeed through taking consistent actions that move you forward. Plus, the rewards that come from developing a successful business go far beyond the money you’ll make, such as the deep sense of personal fulfillment that comes from overcoming all the obstacles along the way.