ENTREPRENEURS TOP COMMON MISTAKES – INTRODUCTION

Let's continue turning the wheel…

I am happy with the good progress that we are making:

I made some introductions in the first few posts. I presented several examples of outstanding entrepreneurs and I just finalized my selection of top common skills found in successful entrepreneurs last week. Now we are ready to review some of the basic mistakes that startups usually fall into. We need to learn as much as possible from them. Entrepreneurship is not about taking risks, it is about pursuing dreams by minimizing and controlling the risks as much as we can. Let’s do our best to avoid these frequent mistakes.

Here is my selection of top common mistakes:

1. Co-founding with the wrong partner.

Finding the right partner is a critical question. If you make a mistake with this selection you are likely to suffer a lot of bad and painful headaches. You need someone who you can work with, someone who you can openly disagree with and at the same time have constructive discussions.

If you are able to find the correct partner you have a great opportunity to complement your skills. Nevertheless keep in mind that is better to be alone than to have a partner who you are not able to work effectively with.

2. Getting blind by your own dreams.

Launching your new venture should be a conscious decision. This decision should be exempt of any emotions and it should be based on facts. Getting emotionally attached to your business idea may jeopardize the whole project. Get your idea validated with facts rather that counting only on your gut instinct to move forward.

If you find signs telling you that it won't work, pay sufficient attention to them. Perhaps it is the moment to redefine your strategy or even minimize your losses and start thinking about the next opportunity. Don’t lose objectivity!

3. Living in your silo.

Get out of your office and talk to potential customers. Ask for feedback constantly. Normally they have the key which allows you to discover what is going to work and what isn’t. Don’t stay in your comfortable silo pretending that you know that everything is going to work out. Your customers have to let you know…

4. Hiring the wrong people.

Do you feel that you spend more time explaining how to do things than the time it would actually take you to do it?

Do you suffer problems aligning your employees or partners with your vision?

Do you get overwhelmed with personnel problems when you should be focusing on your clients?

You may have hired the wrong people for your venture…

Unfortunately this is a common problem in many startups.

5. Running out of cash.

This is the most critical mistake among all those presented. If you run out of cash, the game is over: R.I.P.! In business there is a very limited tolerance to this problem.

This is something pretty obvious for everyone yet it is one of the most frequent reasons why companies have to close the door. If your income or cost forecasts are shown to be wrong and you don’t have enough reserves to offset the difference your situation will probably be very precarious.

During the following five posts we are going to analyze each of them in more detail. Let’s start thinking about what my ideal co-founder partner would look like…