Don’t get us wrong, becoming an entrepreneur and starting your own business is one of those steps in life that gets stamped with a bunch of attractive words, like amazing, rewarding, freedom-granting and best-thing-ever, but it also challenging. Like super-challenging.
We’re not saying this to put you off taking the step into the free lands of entrepreneurship (because you should totally make that step as soon as possible). The reason we’re telling you it’s challenging is simple: this is the truth, and not the kind of truth that Donald Trump likes to spew but the actual truth.
Of course, being the all-round good egg that we are, we are going to outline exactly what the major challenges facing a budding entrepreneur are. By knowing what they are you can understand a little more about them, and what is required from you in terms of overcoming them before you make the giant leap.
The reason this is such an important piece of knowledge to acquire early on is that the majority of new businesses don’t stick around long enough to see their first year out, with another load falling at the two-year hurdle and only a very small amount making it past the five-year marker.
So, without holding you up any longer with our poignant chit chat about how absolutely, totally and utterly crucial it is to plan for and deal with the tests posed by becoming an entrepreneur, here are the major challenges you really want to watch out for. Good luck with it all.
Saying Goodbye To Your Previous Career
While there are certain things you can start to get in place while you are still working your normal full-time job, you won’t be able to make the strides you want to without completely dedicating yourself to your new venture. That is because entrepreneurial success is achieved by taking the leap and then nurturing your business in every way you can, which is a full-time job in itself.
Walking away from what is a stable, steady and possible promising career is never easy, though, especially when you are faced with something extremely unpredictable. Unfortunately, though, there is no way you of enjoying the fruits of employment and waiting until your business has taken off before waving goodbye. You just have to take the risk, make logical decisions and listen to your instincts.
Trying To Find The Financing You Need
Even the most experienced entrepreneurs with a backstory of success can find it hard to land the money they need, so imagine how much of a challenge this is going to be for you as a newcomer. That is why you need to address your financing options as early as you can. It is one thing to have an idea but it is an entirely different ball game to finance it. If you have enough saved, then you should be sweet.
But if you are are having to schedule a meeting with everyone’s best friend, the bank manager, to chat all things business loan then your best bet is to have an impressively detailed plan ready to wow them with. It is no good walking into the bank and saying you hope to start a microelectronic company can I have some money, please. No. You need to go in there with a plan of how you are going to do it and what you are going to spend the money on, from the cutting services you use to the industrial space you will need, to the budget allocated for your utility bills.
The more specific you can be the better you chances of getting the money. So just be prepared for the challenge that is drawing up a detailed plan, the challenge of presenting it to those with the capital and the challenge of getting rejected and fighting on anyway.
Building And Managing A Brand New Team
Oh, you thought this would be easy. Were you just going to phone Dave and ask him to quit his job and come join you on a hope and a prayer? Come on. It’s going to be a lot more challenging than that, especially if you have never managed or run a team before.
Even then, though, picking the right team to make your entrepreneurial dreams a reality is quite the challenge and a stressful one at that. You need to create a team that is going to fight for your business tooth and nail, that is going to work well together, fill certain roles and have strengths that make up for others weaknesses (including yours).
That isn’t all either because you’ll also need to make sure they create the culture you want and at a cost that won’t do more harm than good to your new venture. All that and we haven’t even mentioned the time pressures that are associated with picking a team. It’s about as challenging as anything you’ve ever done.
Adapting Your Vision At All Times
One of the most challenging parts of being a new business owner and entrepreneur – that nobody ever warns you about – is the need to constantly be a visionary for you, your employees and your company. People are going to look to you for answers and expect you to have them. When growth stops, people will expect you to formulate a new approach.
When a competitor emerges in your market, people will look at you for a response plan. When your most promising product starts to sit on the shelf and gather dust, people will want to know how to overcome this and make it successful again. This can be stressful, to say the least because it requires on the spot thinking regarding problems that have had zero precedence’s in your life up to this point. What’s more, time is not going to be your friend.
Yeah, all those amazing things you have heard any entrepreneur say about their businesses and how rewarding and incredible the whole transition has been are probably true. But behind every success story is a journey of challenges that have to be overcome. So just be aware of what they are so that you can limit the hardship they will thrust on you. The more you do that, the quicker you’ll get to the fun bit.