What are the top start-up business mistakes?

[DanaKS]

Not showing your customers how much you value them. You need to earn their loyalty to keep them.

[Carlos™]

never underestimate the envy of the competition

I realized this one a year ago.

A popular "private" forum tried to tarnish my reputation. So I fought with them for a long time. They say my site is "small," and I can't accomplish a booming site. Wrong. I saw my traffic jump from a to m (I'm talkin' x and y opposites here), it went up and down, up and down...telling me that the market's there, I just need to work at it.

So, when I found an opportunity - I found the owner posting his entire forum database for download. I took advantage of it and put it on my site - putting a mirror back at them - members called it the death of their site.

The owner of the site tried to revive it by putting up a wordpress installation because he was imitating what I am doing. Basically copying what I am doing. And FAILED.

Its now a parking page.

The owner also tried to imitate me by creating a network of sites in which he calls "cookie cutter" my sites are currently not up and is a bunch of "satelites" while I plan and execute my ideas.

I realized that I had nothing to worry about because getting ahead means STARTING!

[HamiltonIL]

The single biggest issue I have seen time and time again is: People go into business because they have a product. This product gets all the owners attention and is fantastic for the customer. Then product number two is not quite the same as the fist, and the third might be better, and the fourth worse and so on.

What ever your product is, even if it is a service, it needs to be the same for the customer every single time. A process needs to be documented on how to create this product for the customer so that it can be duplicated over and over again with the same degree of quality.

If the customer knows what they are getting, it is simply a matter of time until they recommend it to others and then you are off and running.

In addition, the process documentation makes it so your personal time is free to make the adjustments to the business cash flows, marketing and any other part to build a sustainable business.

DOCUMENT EVERYTHING!!! I cannot say it enough. It is the single biggest reason I see so many people fail today. Would you like to have a business that REQUIRES the owner to build the product every time to maintain quality or a business that a monkey can make a diamond by following the proper steps?

My Two Cents....

Jonathan Hamilton
HamiltonIL.com
CEO - Hamilton Information Labs, MN USA

[tracyselena]

Hello,

This is a very helpful post. Good job!
For me, it's very important to plan ahead, to have a clear vision of what you really want and how you should achieve it. PLAN. PLAN. PLAN. And remember that it should be feasible too.
Another common problem is having to do so much and without enough time to do it. If you're struggling to finish your to-do-list and feel overwhelmed with it, then you might end up not wanting to do the task at all. That's why planning is very important. Plan your tasks according to your skills, time and effort.

Not all of us is are effective time managers, but we can be as good as others if we just want to. You might want to check the in my signature below. I will share to you something that was taught to me by a good friend if mine. It worked really well for me, I hope it will help you too.

[hoardboy]

Research and planning would be one of the biggest mistakes.

[DayTrader]

One business mistake is expanding the business and opening branches without first going deep into the business. The business should be established well before thinking of expanding it.

[DayTrader]

Do not think of expansion unless you already have established your business. This is one common mistake of entrepreneurs. They are so eager to grow their business, that they weren't able to stabilize their market.

[fkhechan]

Lack of ambition/motivation, a poor business plan and failing to network are just a few at the top of my list.