People fighting on the road to entrepreneurship dream of achieving the glorious future with great business ideas. The entrepreneur is brave enough to prelude the market with his passion and collide with the possible ghosts of failure and loss. Our reason for giving advice to new entrepreneurs is to convey the problems came over by the experienced entrepreneurs and warn them against the mistakes they may make in the difficult journey.
The influential people of our time are courageous, at the same time, innovative entrepreneurs because of their confidence, will and passion. Successful entrepreneurs really change the world – including bank accounts, of course. But everyone makes mistakes. Many times by making mistakes, we learn from our experience what is right and what is wrong.
New entrepreneurs are like that too. They make a high number of mistakes, often even the same mistakes that stepped into the entrepreneurial world before them.
The secret of successful entrepreneurs is to learn from their mistakes and try stronger again without giving up. The recommendations we will share with you here are for you to take firm steps while growing your business by taking the necessary lessons without seeing the mistakes and repeating them.
As we mentioned in our article, when an entrepreneur is unaware of mistakes, unaware of dangers, no matter how good business ideas turn on his mind, he cannot be successful. Past experiences show that; Many startups with great hopes and great new business ideas did not last long due to some simple mistakes.
Here is the advice of Mohab Ayoub who is a young entrepreneur, CEO of Algedra Interior Design and many other companies in Dubai.
1. Do Not Ignore Market Risk
Underestimating and not calculating market risk is the biggest reason many companies fail.
Most entrepreneurs want to make sure the product is perfect by working passionately to create the business ideas they want to put into practice.
The perfect product you have in mind may not be suitable for sales and marketing; Maybe potential customers want completely different features instead of the ones you add? Maybe you made many additions unnecessarily, which caused both unnecessary cash loss in the difficult initial phase and less product to be sold.
What matters is not the perfect product in your mind, but the optimum product that your potential customers are thinking and willing to buy. In other words, it is to prepare the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) version of the product in order to verify the idea with market research and to develop the product by seeing the interaction of the customers with the product and the additional expectations of the customers for a certain period of time.
You are entrepreneurs, you want to start a business. Therefore, at the beginning of your entrepreneurial adventure, instead of spending your limited cash resources to produce the perfect product, you should focus on the highest profit that can be obtained from that product, the product that can be sold in the market.
2. Don’t Listen To The Wrong Advice
Talking is simple. Most of the advice given comes from the empty jaw-ringers not reflected in practice, as William Shakespeare wrote in Othello.
Especially everyone has given out a lot of advice, speaking deliberately, and you’ll hear hundreds of such advice at business venture seminars. Everyone has plans, talent, ideas about how things should work; but few have been able to form a truly working enterprise from that idea.
It is clear that people with invaluable insight into the entrepreneurial world are in high demand. We know that as a new entrepreneur you want to learn more by talking to and listening to people in an entrepreneurial atmosphere.
However, remember that the advice of those who have a lot of time to give advice will not usually be of much value. On the other hand, apart from the basic advice that is essential for any business entrepreneur with any business idea here, the advice will come from someone who never knows your product, your vision, and will never know you as much as you do.
Giving advice on everything is one of the simplest things in the world. Everyone talks, tells what should be and how. If you listen to every recommendation, you can foul your mind with the ideas of people who do not understand your company vision, and by staying in too many ideas, you may find yourself contemplating and not taking action.
Therefore, consider the source when seeking advice; You can scan the recommendation accordingly and filter the valuable piece in the advice – if any.
3. Have Constructive Feedback
However, the relevance of the person providing the recommendation to your company should be considered as well as the source of incoming advice.
Startup owners should not make the mistake of ignoring feedback from investors and potential customers who are deeply preoccupied with their firm. After all, these people are either considering investing in your startup or buying your product. Therefore, they are already concerned with your product, what you do. Investors will make investments and potential customers will make purchases accordingly.
As with the Twitter example, some successful startups haven’t been able to monetize their products for a long time, even if some created popular products. Twitter CEO entrepreneur Jack Dorsey found a successful method of generating income by listening to the advice of his investors. However, many companies did not get the right advice, and despite being popular, they failed to market and make the necessary gains.
While some companies did not have trouble marketing their popular products, they improved their profit from the product with the help they received in pricing models.
Successful investors are people who have been in the sector for many years, who can analyze the pros and cons of the sector, customer behavior, the product that can be won, and moreover, thanks to their past experience, they have the ability to examine the data coming from them by paying attention to the main factors such as market research and business plan.
The interest of such names in your company, business model and product shows that you are on the right track. In addition, their advice can be vital. Instead of analyzing the recommendations well and revealing ‘only the product in your mind’ with your ego; You must be wise enough to follow the wise advice given in your attempt.
4. Don’t Go Fast
Most of the people who give advice to new entrepreneurs tell them to make the first move and move fast. – Quickly enter the market, add the best talents to the team, and perfect the product by multiplying the earnings with the pleasure of being unique.
Yes, the above recommendations may be correct at times. At least it sounds right. But many things that sound right do not correspond to our practice in life.
To be honest, in my personal experience, I have seen too many companies fail due to rapid growth. The wiser option is to conserve capital until the entrepreneur understands what the potential customer really wants.
5. Hire the Right Team
Most of the people who want to start a business for the first time are unable to hire the wrong people and form a team to grow and improve their products.
Entrepreneurs sometimes hire sales managers quickly, while they hire product managers who will help the product improve. They also tend to place people with little experience in key areas within the company, influenced by inexperienced staff who previously worked in the successful company.
This is the most important issue we want to focus on when giving advice to new entrepreneurs. It is important to hire people who fit the needs of the company while not being captivated by interesting resumes.
Details of the advice that can be given are related to your industry, business ideas and vision, and the business plan you wrote down. However, we must repeat that if you want to start a business, team concept is one of the important issues you need to pay attention to.
6. Do not overestimate the seed investment issue
Growing your capital by investing in seeds is not as difficult as new entrepreneurs fear. You can grow your capital with starting seeds by doing research on entrepreneur grants, incubation centers, angel investors.
Of course, a well-prepared business plan is essential. Already a solid business plan will show you the future, pros and cons of the business.
7. Don’t Underestimate Advanced Investments
Advanced investments are a major step towards expanding the company so that it can fully reflect the vision of entrepreneurs. Such investments lead to a crucial relationship to the success of the company – a VC partner (Remember that such a partner is more important to the company’s success than funds.
The entrepreneur must take the game seriously to secure advanced funding; should make preparations.
As EchoSign co-founder Jason M. Lemkin wrote, “The entrepreneur needs the great team, the data collected from the field with 18-month precise plans, to understand customer acquisition costs and other metrics correctly, to see the competitive environment and to map the product accordingly.”
Even if the entrepreneur is full of great business ideas, it is not easy to do the right work to solve such needs. Such things are not learned suddenly, mistakes can be made in the way of learning. But the advice given by Jason Lemkin is fundamentally correct, naturally a need that we constantly repeat when giving advice to new entrepreneurs.
Because the point that will grow your business in accordance with your vision will be to see the existing needs and manage your company accordingly.
8. Mental Fatigue
The entrepreneur feels enormous pressure on his shoulders. The pressure felt is natural, as many of them work more than 80 hours a week and do not get a full sleep without waking up in cold sweat.
Entrepreneurs often work late at night, often alone, stressed out; this affects their creative thinking and analytical capacity.
Especially in the first step taken by the entrepreneur, these are normal; The entrepreneurship world is a market of ups and downs. As your company grows, the ups and downs will not decrease.
If you have an entrepreneurial idea, even some small steps you take to start a business will change you, the world around you. However, everything has pros and cons. If the difficulties daunt you, you are not a warrior anyway.
Many new entrepreneurs see dealing with other issues, having a hobby as a sign of weakness. There is no word to say, because such thinking is nothing but nonsense. It would be unwise for the entrepreneur to spend enough time to correct his nonsense on the telling person. As we mentioned in our article, the important thing is that you do not listen to nonsense, and you can deduce right and wrong by using your mind.
In addition, no one has the magic formula to lead new entrepreneurs to success. However, if the entrepreneur can avoid the eight mistakes we mentioned and take the forward steps of the company, he will increase his chances to reach the vision that changes the world.