There are a huge number of mistakes an entrepreneur can make. Believe me, I've made most of them ! So I'll focus on just a few key ones.
- Underestimating the time it will take for a project to become profitable. Whatever the business, it will take time to build your brand and attract the kind of customers who will spread the news by word of mouth. In my business, I invested in Year 1. By Year 2 it was revenue-neutral. It was only in Year 3 that I could start pulling income from it - I was cautious in doing so, because it is far too easy to get greedy and take so much from the business that you starve it of cashflow.
- When buying software, services or anything else, always independently double-check and sense-check what you are told. Everyone you deal with is working for another organisation, and their goal is to sell you the product that makes them the most money, whether it is right for you or not.
- Always watch your cashflow !
- Your time is precious. Avoid getting drawn into irrelevant side-tracks. A great quote I came across a couple of years ago was from the British Olympic Rowing Team, and it can be applied to your business. They said that whenever they thought of doing something, they asked themselves a single question; "Does it make the boat go faster ?" Unless then answer was a definite yes, they discarded it as irrelevant.