Taking the plunge and becoming an entrepreneur is akin to making a giant leap into the abyss. You might be the most orderly, anal-retentive organizer or logistician and may have a clear picture in your head about how you are going to achieve independence and satisfaction. Do you know how to make God laugh? Tell him you have a plan and in this case tell him that you are going to be a successful entrepreneur! The unfortunate truth, as those who have been down the road before you will testify if you ask them seriously, is that you are in for some adventure. Your plan is nothing more than a constant work in progress and you will certainly end up putting more time, effort, emotional and physical work into your own business than you would working for anyone else.
Whatever idea you have for a business, think really long and hard. Are you just pandering to your own needs and likes, trying to create a business around your hobby because you are interested in it, or are you truly creating a solution to a problem for potential clients? Unless you’re able to solve the problem and have some kind of unique approach as well, the sad truth is you are probably going to get swallowed up among the competition. You really, really need a USP.
In today’s environment you need to be very creative and understand that you will likely have to give more than you get, especially in the early days. People are always wary about doing business with someone or some business that they do not know and are looking for social proof. When you get customers, treat them like pure gold and make sure that you get positive testimonials and feedback. Be prepared to go way beyond the line when providing value.
Unless you have the luxury of a lot of time and a pot of money behind you, the sad truth of being an entrepreneur is that you’re going to have to be head cook and bottle washer, becoming adept at everything. During the early days you will not have the luxury of being able to outsource and must be very careful when it comes to time management. There are certainly not enough hours in an entrepreneur’s day, so be prepared to work at a minimum 60 hours a week. Don’t be surprised if your business demands your attention seven days a week. You will quickly find that time is worth more than money, which can be very frustrating when you’re devoting much more of that time to operations rather than development.
Your business model must be realistic and once you get going you should be able to document its potential according to the amount of time that you are spending, the value per hour of work that you are currently achieving and the potential based on a very realistic and reasonable projection. You need to be brutally honest with yourself and don’t underestimate the issues and problems that take up valuable time and eat into your productivity ratios.
Keep your feet firmly anchored on the ground, because you will go through tremendous ups and downs as your business unfolds. You know what they say – if it were easy, everyone would be doing it!
What challenges did you face becoming an Entrepreneur?
Adam Toren
There’s a quote that goes something on the lines of “Business plans are useless, but planning is indispensable”. I like how you talk about a model being ‘realistic”, i think it needs to be realistic to the market and to the entrepreneur. It needs to be flexible so that all hell does not break loose when a crucial part of your plan goes haywire. Business planning is like doing due diligence before investing, it’s doing your research so that when the test comes, you’re much more likely to come out the other end with only minor bumps and bruises. You can still get questions wrong and receive an “A”. Same with business, you’ll never have everything completely right but hey…sometimes the competition doesn’t set the bar very high so if you’re not out there crushing it, someone else will.
It is all about wanting it bad enough and working hard to make it happen.
Great Post..
As an entrepreneur who has been through all of the above, I can verify that Adams comments are “spot on”. With that being said, anyone with a passion or a product should look at five things:
1. Is the product viable?
2. Is there a market?
3. How well are we capitalised?
4. Do we have the PERSERVERANCE to tough it out during the bad times?
5. Can we execute our plan
If the answer is positive for all five, GO FOR IT!
that is indeed a word said wisely….pts
Oh the irony! I was just reading over my business plan from when I incorporated in 2007. Wow, how things have changed. My entire business model has been flipped up side down. I’ve made so many changes since then and yes it’s been a lot harder than my plan would have suggested.
One thing that I’ve found very important to the success of any entrepreneur is the ability to be flexible. Things aren’t going to go the way you planned most of the time so you have to be able to change directions and adjust (not completely deviate from your goals) to the changing environments. Learn to identify the trends in your niche and move accordingly.
wow man thanx for that!!! really made me remember how hard it is for my dad (Outsourcing Business Soulutions). Im only 16 but the stress of startn my own businesses is alot! but the joy you get when you see it grow and profits come in( even if its minuscule) is worth more than the sweat and blood you put in!! its like a baby and your the father!
Great blog, It is true the entrepreneur journey is always taking different directions. At bigpocket we are a group on entrepreneurs building a company. We believe that sharing is the best way to learn and for that reason we created a blog where we share our experiences, difficulties and lessons learns while building a startup. We all are in the same boat and we all want see our startup grow. We believe that other can learn from our mistakes and success. Our goal is to help others. If you are also building a start up, or would like to know what happens inside while building one, follow us
Our Blog: http://bigpocket.wordpress.com/
Twitter: @bigpocket
Well, when being a first time entrepreneur the question is what you do not know, that you do not know? Being flexible from the beginning and accepting others ideas and suggestions makes you a fast learner that will lead you to adapt when needed.
Certainly, spending more time than expected is normal, but satisfaction and results are next door, go for it.
[...] That is why we believe working on a startup is not a glamorous job, it takes a good stomach to be an entrepreneur ( Tough Truths About Being an Entrepreneur) [...]
A lot of good points in this article. There’s no doubt that being an entrepreneur is difficult, that goes without saying. But what a lot of writers tend to forget is that entrepreneurs have the ability to change the norm. Everybody wants to write about the building blocks of a successful business, what type of traits a person must have to be a successful entrepreneur, so on and so forth. The truth of the matter is that entrepreneurs don’t follow a blue print or model or whatever it is you want to call it. If you have the passion and desire to do something, go out and do it. Somewhere along the lines, someone will create a new business model or create a new business platform and new book will be written about this new way of being an entrepreneur. It’s up to the entrepreneur to determine if he/she will become successful.
Adam,
Nice Post. The main challenge one face is “lack of time for learning”. I see a gap here. As an entrepreneur, one needs to update their knowledge and keep learning every day. The challenges are different day by day. Once, you have people supporting your business, suddenly, you need to learn how to lead and manage people. So, the challenges are unique.
Robert