Five Mistakes Every Entrepreneur Makes And How To Avoid Them

Are you a newbie in entrepreneurship or an aspiring entrepreneur, or just bored?

Then, this article is for YOU!

Entrepreneurship is hard. Under the layers of glamorous start-ups, lie the hardships faced by founders. Entrepreneurship is not a rosy road with success lying around everywhere. You have to fight for it. Every day.

According to a survey by Wall Street Journal, three out of four start-ups fail. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10000872396390443720204578004980476429190

Why three out of four start-ups fail and why the fourth one survives? What is the difference between these three start-ups and the fourth start-up? What mistakes are made by failed start-ups that the successful start-up does not make?

In this post, we will look at five of the biggest and most common mistakes made by founders of failed start-ups and how the successful ones avoid making these mistakes.

MISTAKE #1

GROWING TOO FAST OR TOO SLOW

For a start-up, positive growth is the key to success. But, majority of start-ups fail to keep the required growth and eventually fail. Either by growing too fast or by growing too slow, you are paving a way to destroy your start-up.

If you grow too fast, you will run out of funds. If you grow too slow, you will never have funds.

Founders of successful start-ups know when to expand and when to stop. The founders think about future and then make decisions. That’s what makes a difference.

If you want to save your start-up from premature or delayed growth, you have to take wise decisions on the basis of your start-ups earning potential and money left in the bank.

MISTAKE #2

OVERESTIMATING THE MARKET POTENTIAL

You see a problem. You get an idea about how to solve it. You tell about this idea to your family members and friends and they feel the need of your solution. You think that this is a Billion Dollar Idea and start working on it without proper research. That’s where you made a BIG mistake. You just overestimated the market potential. What if the market is not ready for your product or service? What if, even the market is ready for your product or service, but the market is very small?

Founders of failed start-ups often make this mistake of overestimating the market potential and build a product which is not needed by anyone.

Successful start-ups do their homework before they start building anything. Proper market research, competition, growth potential, etc. are needed to be done before starting any venture.

Do your homework before you start anything.

MISTAKE #3

NOT HAVING A MENTOR

If you are a newbie, or even if you are not, you will most definitely need a mentor who can guide you throughout your journey. Your mentor can be anyone. Industry veteran, parents, subject matter expert, etc.

All successful start-ups have a mentor who guides the founders throughout their journey. Not having a mentor can jeopardize the success of your start-up.

So, before you even start, get a mentor and discuss everything with them.

MISTAKE #4 

NO MARKETING 

“My product is awesome. I don’t need any marketing. It will sell itself.”

If you think the same, pack your bags buddy, you are definitively going to fail.

“But WhatsApp has done zero marketing. It sells for itself” True. But this happens to only a handful of start-ups. Rest need tons of marketing budgets. Your start-up is no exception. Hire a marketing team now or outsource it to any company. Don’t ask questions, just do it!

 MISTAKE #5 

TRYING TO DO IT ALL 

As a founder, you will be the incharge of running it. You will have partners as well. Divide the responsibilities equally and then don’t interfere in what other partners do.  Founders of failed start-ups make the mistake of trying to do all of the tasks by themselves and not distributing the responsibilities. This result in poor efficiency, poor quality of product and it affects personal life.

Successful founders know how to distribute tasks. You too need to distribute tasks among the founders and employees.

So, in this article, we have seen what mistakes founders make and how to avoid them.

Remember,

“Start-ups fail, founders don’t”