You can go to school to get that marketing or business administration degree, but nothing will prepare you for the world of business itself. And many of the most important lessons are learned after an entrepreneur’s first 10 years in the field. After many failures, successes, and conflicts, directions become a little less vague. One thing remains true though, the more you know and the faster you know it, the better off you are. Here’s some common points to consider as a starting entrepreneur.
Not everyone will understand
While you do need to make sure the problem your business is solving for your audience is important, be prepared for some people to just not understand. This can be taken as a lesson in life, because not everybody will support what you do. There is somebody out there who is bound to disagree with your ideas. You can use their criticism to help build up your idea to perhaps suit people like them, if possible, or just accept their opinion and push onward. You also need to make sure your idea makes sense though. If someone doesn’t quite agree with your idea, you should consider their opinion and reflect on what it means. Do they have a point? Are you starting a business in a very saturated niche? Roll their opinion around, see if it has any constructive criticism to build from, and move on.
Being unique and creative is very important
There are businesses in every direction we look today. If you come up with an idea, the odds are it has already been thought of. Now it’s a race to get your product or service out there and known before competitors. Even then, time doesn’t promise anything. You have to stick out. We see this everywhere in business, as the point declares, it’s very important. With many businesses all offering the same product or service, your only hope is to present it in a more unique fashion. We all know how being unique works, no need to go in depth on that, but pay attention to your competition, see how they tackle the idea or problem, see how you can approach it in another way that your audience may appreciate more.
Time becomes a precious resource
Time can be a precious resource for a lot of people, not even necessarily the entrepreneur. But when you start a business, a lot of weight is put upon your shoulders to entertain. It’s simply impossible for you to do everything, so you hire a team, but somehow you still find yourself struggling to keep up on a treadmill stuck at full speed. This is common with startup businesses. Welcome to being an entrepreneur. Don’t micromanage and make sure to focus on the important things. When time is limited, you have to do what is more productive and what will the make the biggest difference. This means you can’t take on every task; some will have to be left to finish later when the opportunity allows. Over time you’ll learn just how important time management skills are.
A lot of startups do fail
Don’t feel completely discouraged if your first business doesn’t work out. To be quite frank, the odds weren’t in your favor to begin with. But now that you’ve had the experience, the odds of you starting an even more successful business are much more likely. Failing is learning in all cases, but especially in this one.
Startups are just that. They get you on your feet and into the game. They’re another chance for you to learn from your mistakes and keep an open mind to what changes can be made in the future to work around those problems. With 90% of startups failing, it obviously seems just like a learning experience for new entrepreneurs, so take advantage of it and pay close attention to what works, and what doesn’t quite seem to.
There are a lot of lessons to learn, and they are best to learn at the expense of others. So keep an open mind and accept any wisdom that comes your way in your entrepreneurial venture.