Most entrepreneurs expect to face the “normal” challenges of starting a business, which include finding the right opportunity, building and executing a winning plan, and financing their venture. But many forget the pitfalls associated with traditional business jobs which can apply even to the smartest and most dedicated people running their own business.
Often these facets of entrepreneurship don’t rear their ugly head until well down the road. Yet before you start, you should think about what the impact might be on your psyche, and how to neutralize these challenges in your own plan. I’ll summarize key ones here, from the positives and negatives in “Build a Business, Not a Job” by David Finkel and Stephanie Harkness:
- Long-term daily job grind. Sometimes entrepreneurs are so set on creating a successful business, they forget to create one that they love to work on every day. After a time, they find that they have merely created a job for themselves, with the same rote responsibilities and stress that they experienced in a prior corporate world. Daily attendance is mandatory in order for the business to succeed and be profitable, and the so-called freedom is hard to find. Vacations and time-off don’t happen for years.
- No formal training courses. Larger enterprises are always sending their “high fliers” to leadership refreshers, new technology updates, and training on employee performance management. Entrepreneurs find themselves all alone in the trenches, without the time, money, or incentives to do these things. The result is a sinking feeling after some time that you are no longer vital and competitive in your own domain.
- Personal wealth management. Entrepreneurs find that the business skills needed to grow their business are not the same as the personal wealth skills needed to manage a healthy personal wealth plan for their family and their retirement. Their business is their entire portfolio. They are at the mercy of innumerable catastrophes, making this a huge risk.
For these individuals, a lack of financial fluency often leads to poor decisions after they no longer have their businesses. They wake up one day without their business, and with nothing to show for the years spent building it.
- How society perceives you. As a young entrepreneur, everyone looks up to you for running your own business. But later you find that you may be perceived by many as a person without job security, unlike your classmates or ex-colleagues, who are sought after or being placed in well-known large company or multinational positions.
Even worse, you find that your business domain has developed a negative stigma through no fault of your own, as has happened to investment banks, mortgage brokers, and many nightlife businesses. It’s no fun to hide your business role rather than proudly proclaim it.
- Business must be more than the money. Years into a successful business, owners often wake up one day facing a painful question: Is this all there is? To truly be successful your business must be about more than the money.
Good entrepreneurs find a great personal adventure, like Richard Branson, or great philanthropy, like Bill Gates. Guy Kawasaki says the best reason to start an organization is to make meaning – to create a product or service that makes the world a better place.
Every business startup has to have a viable idea, but it also needs a strong sense of realism on the possible pitfalls. Starting a company as an entrepreneur should be viewed as the beginning of a lifetime career, not a work project that you expect to be over in a few months. As such you should consider the long-term challenges as well as the short-term ones.
