So, in the world of boxing if a boxer knows what to anticipate from his opponent he has an edge. In a war, if a country facing another enemy can anticipate which side that enemy is going to attack from, then that country as an edge. If you as an entrepreneur is guaranteed what you’re about to face in the world of business, you have an edge. So, my goal today is to give you an edge over everyone who doesn’t read this post.
So, ten challenges every entrepreneur will face.
SACRIFICING YOUR SALARY: When you’re used to having a salary that is coming in and it’s warm and fuzzy like a nice comfortable pillow, and you’ve got other benefits coming in too. Then, one morning you decide to be an entrepreneur. That’s when you realise that you’ve to sacrifice the benefits that come with a job. That’s a challenge you should be ready to face.
CAPITAL MANAGEMENT: what I mean by capital management is time clock on how much you’ve saved and what your expenses are. You’re going to hear it constantly, tick-tock tick-tock. The way you manage your capital will allow you to stay in business long enough to make it as a business owner. If you know how to manage your capital properly, it doesn’t matter if you are a real estate agent or a tech company out of silicon valley or if you’re running the liquor store, you will need to learn how to manage your capital yourself to stretch it as long as possible.
PROCESSING ISSUES: you will have to process many unknown issues that you’ve never experienced before. How do you do this when you’ve never handled such issues before? You will keep asking yourself how come nobody told you this before and how did those before you manage to scale past it? ANTICIPATION! There will be many issues but you need to anticipate for unknown issues nobody is going to prepare you for.
TEAM BUILDING: How are you going to put a team together? How good of a recruiter are you going to be? How good are you in bringing solid talent, operations, systems, sales, technology, and compliance? How are you going to do that? You are going to face that challenge when you realise you can’t do it all and it comes down to how well you build a team.
VISION: casting a vision others want to belong to. Casting a vision of what people are going to achieve 3, 6 or even 20 years from now. This is the ability to make people believe in you and what your business entails. If you cannot cast a vision, then you’re going to lose the best type of talents and business.
LONLINESS: you will be lonely. There will be many lonely nights. There will be many days where you will just sit there saying “I don’t know if this is going to really work out.” There will days where you have no one to call because you can’t complain to any of them, for the simple reason that you decided to become an entrepreneur. They never forced you to become an entrepreneur, you made that decision. You call them and the last thing you don’t want to hear is “I told you not to do it.” It’s going to be a touch phone call. So, be ready to have those lonely moments.
TAX AND LAWYERS: you’re now paying taxes as an entrepreneur, you will need to know how to go about it. You will need lawyers to protect you from bad business. And to handle things like incorporation, partnerships and other business related things. “How am I setting this up?” will be the question you’ll constantly ask yourself. Which means you will need to talk to CPAs and lawyers in ways you’ve never done before. And they will tell you stuff you’ve never heard before. In many cases you’re going to sit there acting like you know what they are talking about but you have no clue about what they are saying and you don’t want them to know that you don’t have a clue of what they are saying because you don’t want them to charge you more. But you need to ask “I don’t understand, can you please explain this to me?”
WEARING MULTIPLE HATS: one day no one is cleaning the kitchen, you have to do it. No one is putting the documents in the files, you have to do it. No one is answering the phone, you have to do it. You’re probably replying to a message you shouldn’t probably be replying as a CEO, but you just have to because you’re wearing different hats. No one knows this, but you’ve to go through this as a person who starts a business.
HANDLING COMPETITION: you will deal with people who want to put you out of business. And you will say “how brutal is this? You can’t be this cold?” it’s the world of business. You’re taking piece of business away from them and they want to put you out of business.
LIFESTYLE CHANGE: this will be difficult for a lot of people. You’re accustomed to going out every Friday night, and sleeping in a little bit and waking up 5am. And when you come home you watch all the games. You get every one of these things because it’s your lifestyle. Your boys call you on Friday night because you have this spot you go to. Sunday you have where you go to just relax. Let me prepare you, all these is going to change. Your relationship with some of your friends is going to change. Your daily habit is going to change. Some of the places you were going to before is going to change. Generally, most people cannot handle such change. They want to win big as an entrepreneur and also want to keep their previous lifestyle. You have to let go of one to achieve the other.
If you don’t understand that these are the challenges you’re going to face as an entrepreneur, then my advice to you, is to just remain an employee. For those that still want to swim in the murky waters of entrepreneurship, then these is for you. Keep hustling!
I think this is a great list and you hit the nail on the head! I think the one thing people don't think about when starting their own business is they will have to wear multiple hats like you said. The business is never has cut and dry as you think it is going to be and you will have to do everything when you first start!
My advice is to think of 20 tasks that you will need to preform and then think of 20 more because you will need to do all of them at some point. Being self employed is awesome and starting a business is so fulfilling but understanding what you are getting into is really important!
Great post!
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