Challenges of Starting a Business
If you’re considering starting a business, you might have certain ambitions or dreams driving you toward this goal. However, you might also be wondering if starting a business is hard. The short answer is yes because startups can involve quite a few potential obstacles that you need to overcome. Fortunately, you can identify them and find ways to manage the challenges involved. As you learn what it takes to start a business, you can make the right decision about whether to forge ahead.
Challenges You Might Encounter
The risks involved with starting a business can be daunting. Whether you fail or fly, just trying to get a business going is going to impact quite a few parts of your life now and later. You’ll take personal risks with the time and energy you have to put into this, and your self-esteem is likely to be closely tied to it. You’re also going to take professional risks if you start something that doesn’t work out, and the result can damage your career and industry reputation. The biggest risks might be the financial ones because you usually need to spend money to make money.
Understanding the Challenges Ahead of You
One of the most common challenges in starting a business is just comprehending the difficulties that lie ahead of you. If it doesn’t start with having a great idea, then the rest might not matter.
You need a product or service that you can offer to others. It doesn’t have to be something new and original, but there needs to be a market for it. Determine this, and then start making a business plan and raising capital. The right inspiration and planning give you a fighting chance to surmount the obstacles ahead of you, but failing to plan is truly planning for failure. The earliest hardships in starting a new business are the obstacles in your mind.
Bracing for Short-Term Losses
New businesses might need several years before turning profitable, so you need to be ready to deal with short-term setbacks. You must prepare for financial insecurity, but you also have to remember on a daily basis that it won’t be permanent. Take a good look at your finances before you start your business, so you can do so on the best possible footing. If your own credit history and score are going to determine business financing, then you need to improve them as much as you can. It’s also wise to minimize your personal expenses as much as possible since your business might not be in a position to pay you for a while.
Hiring the Right Employees
A great business idea is essential, but you also need someone to execute it. Even the best idea won’t matter if you don’t hire right for your business. If you intend to work alone, you still need the right support from people around you. Finding great people involves a delicate balance between recruiting talented and skilled individuals for each available position and pulling together a cohesive group that works well as a unit. Determine what your needs are, and then recruit the right candidates. Once you have these people, support them throughout your business environment, and create a community that encourages collaboration. Recognize and reward people appropriately because celebrating and acknowledging success boosts morale and fuels business growth.
Overcoming Your Fear of Failing
Understanding the process of starting a new business is a crucial mental hurdle, but you also need to deal with your fear of failure. If your fear is too great, you won’t believe you can do it, or you might self-sabotage along the way. Conversely, having no fear of failure might not prepare you adequately for the challenges ahead. You need to assess which fears or concerns are genuine so that you can work on them versus the ones that are self-limiting and spring from anxiety. A support system is essential, and that’s likely to involve both people who understand your business and those who do not. Business mentors can help you learn how to start an enterprise while friends and family can help you navigate the emotional minefield on the way to success.
Legal and Regulatory Compliance
Practically every industry has laws and regulations that need to be followed. Compliance isn’t just about staying out of trouble with the government or industry authorities. It’s about protecting your business, and it says something to consumers and other business partners about how you conduct yourself. You’ll need to know what the regulatory landscape is when you start, and you’ll have to keep up with changes as they take place.
Identify Business Resources
Your hope is that your business profits will pay for all your overhead and fund growth, but that can take time. To start a business, you need to identify potential resources. Your own dedication and hard work are crucial resources, but they might not be enough. The most crucial resource is your business idea, but do you have enough resources to manifest that idea into a reality? Funding dominates that category, but you also need advisers and mentors who can guide you through the daily details of starting and operating a business. Follow through with effective advertising and marketing.
Managing Motivation
Keeping yourself and your employees motivated can be daunting when you are trying to start a new business. The early stages might be exciting, but as you run into disappointments and setbacks, morale can become an issue. You need to manage expectations in ways that help remind everyone that challenges are going to arise, but these can be opportunities to learn and grow along the way. Optimism isn’t always easy, but it’s crucial to keep up over time.
Business Development Never Stops
One of the hardest things that you might have to accept is that business development never stops. While you might cherish the dream of launching your business, the initial development is only the beginning. As markets change, you need to adapt. Consider the story of Netflix, a company that started with DVDs by mail before becoming a streaming service and later creating a massive library of its own content. Amazon is certainly another example as they started selling books online to become the largest e-commerce center in the world and branching out into everything from their own streaming service to delivering groceries.
Questions to Ask Yourself
Do you know if you’re ready to live the startup lifestyle? Going from working for another company to being your own boss is a major life change, and it’s not a way to get rich fast. It might eventually let you eliminate your current problems or stresses in life, but you’ll go through a lot of trial and error along the learning curve before things pay off in the long run. To decide if you really have a good shot, ask yourself:
- Is there a market demand for your product or service?
- How big is the market opportunity?
- Is the opportunity growing?
- How much competition is waiting for you?
- Are there talented professionals you can recruit?
- Can you lead them?
- Will you have to defend intellectual property?
- Are you being honest with yourself about the costs involved?
- Can you develop the necessary skills if you don’t have them already?
- Do you possess the stamina to see this through?
Are you ready to be an entrepreneur? Analyze your financial situation right now, and think about the risks involved. Do you have the skills and work ethic necessary to run a business? Or will you have to just be the owner and let someone else operate it? Consider your emotional readiness. Starting a new business involves a lot of risk and personal vulnerability. Can you handle the stress and the potential for failure?
Make Things Easier for Yourself
Regardless of your sector or skills, your two biggest assets are going to be your positive attitude and sharp mind. You need to protect your mental health. Avoid pushing yourself too hard, and learn how to care for yourself at all times. Frequent breaks are necessary to maintain a high level of performance. They might involve exercise or simply listening to music. Physically stepping outside of your business, even if it’s a home office, on a regular basis, helps you achieve this. You can also set a standard of self-care for your employees that becomes part of your company culture.
The personal life of an entrepreneur should be a source of strength and consideration. Friends and family can be people you rely on for advice, support, and opportunities to vent and talk things out. At the same time, be sure your closest family members agree with your entrepreneurial aspirations. They may have to sacrifice for your dreams because you’ll be so busy.
In time, you need to find an effective work-life balance. There might not be any in the earliest stages, and long, hard hours might seem like they’ll be forever the norm. However, you need to maintain a social life throughout these times so you can resume a healthy personal life after you get your business going with some momentum. Identify the social relationships that are most important to you, and spend quality time nurturing them on a regular basis.
Your physical health also matters greatly for both your success and happiness. Get enough sleep, eat and drink right, and exercise on a regular basis. Make sure your doctor knows what you’re going through so they can help you manage your stress levels before they have a negative impact on your health.
Is It Worth It?
Now that you know many of the challenges you might face starting a business and the work involved in overcoming them, you might wonder if it’s worth it? Starting your own business does have quite a few benefits, so consider if any of these apply to you:
- Attain financial independence.
- Enjoy the ability to support nonprofits or seek social justice in your community.
- Feel motivated every day because you’re no longer working for someone else.
- Harness your creative side.
- Invest in your own job security.
- Make your own rules from the start.
- Manage your own schedule and lifestyle.
- Master many different skills.
- Take advantage of tax breaks.
- Follow your personal dreams and fulfill your passions.
If most of these appeal to you, then the answer is yes — starting a business is worth the effort and risk for you.
Let Us Help
Starting a business makes many demands on your time and energy, but you don’t have to face them alone. Here at American Business Credit, we have over 20 years of experience in helping people like you get loans they need at competitive rates. Our simple application process makes it easy to get access to loans quickly, and we work with everyone individually to find options that fit their credit histories and scores. We charge nothing if we can’t find you the funding you need for your business, and we offer you a multitude of options while explaining how each one would work for you. If money is the only thing keeping you from starting a business, then contact us right away.
