If you’re a prospective entrepreneur or you’ve just launched your startup, there is a whole lot of uncertainty on your journey to the top. Statistics are scary. According to the Global Entrepreneurship report, only 20% of startups make it past their first year of operation. Surprisingly, half of those businesses never exist in the next 5 years. And only one-third of those that make it past 5 years don’t make it past their 10th adversary.
Business consultants say that lack of profits and failure to recognize the threats to entrepreneurial success are the key reasons why businesses fail.
To stay vigilant and dodge the many obstacles in your path that could negatively impact business growth, you should recognize and deal with the following threats:
1. Wanting to achieve a lot in a shorter timescale.
It’s easy for a first-time entrepreneur to get overwhelmed when launching their startup. It’s perfectly okay to have great ambitions, but just like the adage, ‘’Rome wasn’t built in a day,’’ you need to take small steps in order to achieve sustainable business success. Set realistic and achievable objective. When you accomplish that objective, you’ll be motivated to achieve the next, and the cycle of success will continue. That’s how sustainable businesses are built.
2. Getting distracted or losing focus along the way.
In today’s business climate, there are numerous distractions both inside and outside of your startup. These distractions can easily make you lose focus on the main business objective. Examples of distractions that can make you lose focus include struggling to nail your first sale, taking longer to release a product because of a feature bloat and confusion on the social media marketing strategy to adopt. It’s vital that you always stay focused even if such distractions manifest to enable your startup to take off and flourish.
3. Quitting too early.
The business landscape is littered with many obstacles. Both beginner and accustomed entrepreneurs face these obstacles. It’s critical to gather that every problem has a solution. To make it in your first 6 to 12 months, you need to plow through these obstacles with a lot more zeal and positivity. Successful entrepreneurs meet roadblocks every day, but they don’t quit. They fight to the death. As a first-time entrepreneur, you need to develop the spirit of fighting and making good judgments to solve problems that manifest in your business.
4. Having a mentality that starting and running a business is a stroll in the park.
Today, there are thousands of testimonials online about successful entrepreneurs. Why only testimonials about successful entrepreneurs? You ask. Because nobody wants to write about failures. The copies simply can’t sell because people are so obsessed with success. Also, successful entrepreneurs don’t have the time to narrate the peaks and valley, twists and turns they experienced before they achieved success. First-time entrepreneurs fail terribly because they think that business success comes easy, so they don’t take quality time to research about business dynamics.
5. Thinking that to succeed, you must work around the clock.
Launching a startup is not easy. There are many physical and logistical challenges involved. Otherwise, everyone would be an entrepreneur today. The worst thing you can ever do is overwork yourself. Most beginner entrepreneurs even work around the clock. While this level of passion is good, it may expose you and allow the next challenge to topple you with ease. Working around the clock is unsustainable, and you shouldn’t do it if you want to grow your enterprise quickly.
6. Not looking at what other successful entrepreneurs do.
The best entrepreneurs learn from competitors. Competition can give you the much-needed impetus to succeed. Most first time entrepreneurs make the mistake of not looking at what competitors and successful entrepreneurs do to aid their business growth. They think they can do it by themselves. Looking at what the competition or successful entrepreneurs do gives you the opportunity to iron out the mistakes you make in the day to day running of your business. You also get to know innovative marketing strategies they use to supercharge their sales and apply them to your start up.
