Countless start-ups fail every year. But there
are not countless reasons that they fail.
People are not aware of the most deadly pits that swallow up their
effort year in year out. They keep on falling into the same traps over and over.
If they could just avoid these common mistakes, the chances of their business
being successful would significantly increase.
Not prepping your life
No one would
show up to run Marathon without training first. The same should be true of
start-ups. You need to warm up with some prelaunch training; you have
to be rigorous about making sure you’re ready. Start-up will
take a toll on your life, guaranteed. You need to make sure some areas
of your life are buckled up, because entrepreneurship will shine a light on
whatever parts of your personal life that is weak.”
Confusing a product with a business
Eric
Holtzclaw says people don’t always know how to build upon their
success. “A product solves an individual need,” he says,
“but a real business has something customers will come back for again and
again.” Here’s how to make the distinction: Do you have potential revenue
streams beyond the customer’s initial purchase of a product? That’s a key factor for prospective investors,
who “want to see what the next thing is and want to make sure
that there’s some longevity beyond what you’re offering today. What
will the business look like in three or five years? That’s a big
concern from an investor perspective, and that will help you determine if you
even have a business at all.”
Not paying for expertise
You’re not
good at everything. You can’t be. And yet, every part of a business should be
done expertly -- particularly the tricky stuff like taxes and legal issues.
Says serial entrepreneur Greg Rau “Structuring not only the company but
also potential investments in the wrong way can come back to haunt you,”
So where it really matters, don’t download some free online guide or think you
can handle it yourself. Find an expert whose job is to know exactly what you
need to do.
Ignoring data
“Magical thinking
can kill any business,” says Lisa Stone, You can’t just believe you’ll
succeed, you need to actually crunch some numbers and figure out if you will
succeed. There has to be data that validates that your big idea
is real, or at least provides a leading indicator that it could
be. Once you collect that data, use it to create key performance
indicators or milestones to show your idea or business has a leg to walk that
is progressing.
Clinging to the wrong idea
“You have
to realize that sometimes you’re pushing up the wrong hill or you’re pushing
into a brick wall you’re never going
to break through,” Rannala says. This mistake is especially
prevalent among first-time entrepreneurs and people entering an
unfamiliar market. Don’t be blind by your love for an ideal; evaluate it
very well to see if it can bring desire success. Some people are in love with
their original idea and can’t recognize how much it’s failing. Don’t go on gut.
Go on evidence. Evaluate how your product fits in the market, it benefit to
your consumer and you need determine it profitability known well that profit is
the blood of every business.
Failing to delegate
It’s perhaps
the most classic problem in management: Rather than give up control and trust
others to take the reins, you try to do everything yourself and fail. So, what
to do? Delegate, obviously. Start by drawing up processes, almost like a
guidebook for how to do things the way they should be done. That way you’ll
feel calmer, and your employees will have the direction they need. If you’re
overwhelmed and no one can take anything off your shoulder, you’re
never going to get out of that state. You have to delegate.
Thinking money solves everything
Struggling
entrepreneurs often think that if they get certain amount of money, their
problems will be solved. But money can’t solve a fundamental issue with a
business model. “If your business model isn’t sound, throwing money at it is
not going to work,” Cast says. “You have to fix the
problem first, and then raise the money. Doing it the other way
around will only get you in more trouble.”
Underestimating how long sales take
Let’s get
this out of the way: Sales take time. Many startups even think they
can close a big enterprise account in three to six months, but
in reality, a deal like that can take more than a year. And if your
business plan doesn’t account for that, you’re going to be in trouble. Many
companies run out of money because they have been too aggressive in estimating
their timelines.”
Fearing failure
No matter
how much entrepreneurs may glorify failure, there’s still that scary word:
fail. And nobody wants to be the opposite of success. Change the mindset.
You didn’t fail; you ran an experiment that will improve your next
business. Although it hurts a little bit each time, but believe me you’ve
learned something, and you can apply that lesson to move forward and make your
business better.”
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