20 Truths About Becoming an Entrepreneur
Monday, February 13, 2017, 6:00 PM | Leave Comment
Are you dreaming of becoming an entrepreneur? Do you want to transform your own vision into a money-making business, to set your own working hours, to decide who you want to work next to, and last but not least to enjoy the unparalleled satisfaction of being the proud parent of your own special pet project?
Being an entrepreneur is a complete dream for many people…at least at first.
For every success story, there are thousands of others you never hear about because they simply don’t make it.
Entrepreneurship is not for everyone, and here is why:
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Discouragement
It’s hard to stick to your vision and tirelessly fight for it, especially when nobody but yourself or your possible co-founder(s) cares about it—people won’t care until you have something to show for it.
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Founding
Raising money is not as easy and glamorous as you may think, and many business plans with great potential never get passed this stage.
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Employees
Yes, you’ll get to pick your own employees, but you’ll quickly find that even if they have some equity, they will never care about your company as much as you do.
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Friends
In the effort to be supportive, most people around you won’t tell you the truth about your ideas. Getting challenging feedback is actually a good thing, and you have to seek out advisors that can give you that type of blunt criticism.
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Relationships
Friends and relatives can make the best and most loyal employees, but what if they don’t perform at the level needed? Firing your best friend or removing a co-founder is just an example of the many unpleasant tasks you may have to face as the ultimate decision maker.
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Work hours
Yes, you get to set your own hours, but being self-employed or getting a small business off the ground often equals working 24/7, and you can say goodbye to vacation time and even income for the first few years…
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Luck
Even when you work around the clock, you need some luck to get your business off the ground. However, keep in mind that you are also creating your own luck by all that work you’re putting in—without being sufficiently prepared to seize upcoming opportunities, even the luckiest of circumstances won’t be of any help.
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Risk
Even with all that work and some lucky opportunities, you may still fail, because being an entrepreneur doesn’t guarantee success. You may even need to fail a few times, because if you don’t, it may be because you’re not taking enough risk. As a true entrepreneur, you can’t let a few failures break you. Learn from them, get up, and keep going!
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Quitting
There will be plenty of times when being an entrepreneur feels too hard and you want to go back to a corporate job. All entrepreneurs have these days. It’s a normal aspect of being an entrepreneur. Again, get up, and keep going!
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Haters
There will always be haters! Most people nurture dreams of entrepreneurship but not everyone has the courage to become one. You might discover that they hate you, because you took the risk and they didn’t. You have to ignore that and keep going forward.
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Income
Have you set enough money aside to cover your personal living expenses for the first few years of struggle? Your will likely not afford to pay yourself a salary in the beginning.
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Revenue
It’s crucial to generate sales as early on as you can to get your business off the ground. This means that you’ll have to put your sales hat on and go knock on peoples’ doors.
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Competition
There’s such a thing as healthy competition and even healthy jealousy. If seeing a successful competitor drives you a bit extra to push for your own success, that’s a good thing!
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Desire
Most entrepreneurs are constantly risking it all. If you manage to build a successful company, you may soon sell it to start a new company, or to invest it in other people’s companies. This is because, as an entrepreneur, you will always have the desire to create a legacy and to be part of something bigger than yourself.
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Keep going
Most people will think you are crazy, but you have to ignore that and keep going!
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Necessity
The obvious consequence of putting everything at stake is an increased drive to get your business off the ground. If you don’t start raking in the sales, your pet project won’t survive and all you’ve worked so hard for was for nothing. The mere urgency of survival may help you find new ways, strength, and innovation you didn’t know you had. After all, necessity is the mother of all inventions.
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Rest
This is something you won’t be doing too much as an entrepreneur, but there will be days where you simply need to re-charge, and that’s okay. If you’ve reached your limit and feel burnt out, rest! Don’t worry about loosing time, you’ll likely come back stronger.
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Help
No matter if you’ve just started your endeavor, or have reached a high level of success, it’s okay to ask for help and it’s good karma to give help. Be gracious and humble—favors may be returned, and your reputation as a good person that people want to do business with and work for is priceless.
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Positiveness
Is the glass half full or half empty? You can’t overestimate the power of positive thinking.
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Consequences
However, there is an aspect of high risk taking you must consider too: the very real possibility of losing it all. You have to know how much you are willing to risk. How many failed business ventures before calling it quits? How many years in poverty before going back to a corporate job? It’s one thing if your sacrifices will lead to success in the end, and a whole other if you end up with nothing. What is your limit, and do you know how far you are willing to go?
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Christine founded the site CPA Review Courses – an online resource dedicated to helping professionals pass all four sections the CPA Exam on their first try. Christine provides reviews of cpa prep courses and gives expert cpa study tips to ease the process of becoming a CPA.
