An entrepreneur is someone who dares to build a business on an innovative idea. He builds his business independently, facing and baring all the risks and enjoying all the rewards by himself.
Amazon, Apple, and Uber are a few examples of successful businesses that were innovative ideas born in the minds of entrepreneurs.
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What are the challenges faced by entrepreneur?
People get attracted to the idea of being an entrepreneur looking at the success enjoyed by successful entrepreneurs. However, they just look at the fruit of these people’s success and don’t know the struggle they have done to become successful.
The journey to becoming an entrepreneur is not a piece of cake. You will be doing something that no one has done before. On top of that, you will have no one to go to in trying times. You will have to face all the challenges and work out all of them as they will come.
The following are a few common challenges that every entrepreneur faces while starting their business.
1. Getting funds for your business
The first challenge that every entrepreneur comes across is to get funds for their business venture. It is comparatively easy for an experienced business person to collect funds and to attract investors for the new business venture.
On the other hand, for a new entrepreneur, the challenge of attracting investors and collecting funds becomes challenging because of various reasons, such as
- They don’t have a history in the market.
- They don’t have connections with the right people.
- Investors don’t trust them.
- They might not be good at convincing investors to invest in their business.
In addition to this, if you are a young entrepreneur, then there are chances that you might also be paying off your education loan. The lack of enough funds can become why your business doesn’t even take off from the ground.
However, if you somehow manage to get funds for your business, you are still not free from risk. The initial few months of your venture can be challenging. You might not make any profit, and there are chances you might end up spending higher than expected.
In such a scenario, if you don’t have backup financial support, then your whole efforts to set up the business will be wasted, and you will end up with debt to pay.
2. Leaving your career
Going your well-paying job and taking up the challenge of walking into unknown territories is not everyone’s teacup. This could be one of the most challenging decisions that you are required to make as an entrepreneur.
Some businessmen run their small businesses along with their steady and well-paying jobs. They might work late nights and on weekends. But if you want your business to grow significantly, then you are required to leave your job and get into your business full-time.
However, dumping your well-established career is not easy, especially when your future is unpredictable. Sadly, you will be the only one who will make this choice—my suggestion is never to ignore your instincts and always take calculated decisions.
3. Hiring people
Hiring the right people to work for you is very crucial for the success of your business. You will want to hire the best people to work for you. However, hiring the right people is not the only factor that you are required to consider. But you will have to manage the expense of having employees.
The people that you will hire should be able to fill different roles. They should be willing to adapt to your working culture and should have the ability to work under extreme stress. When you are building a business, you would need people who can work extra hours and are willing to put their 100% efforts to take your business to the height of success.
However, talent is not only a factor in hiring a person. Several other factors, such as education, experience, behavior, psychological assessment, etc. should also be considered.
Therefore, you alone might not be enough to conduct interviews. You can hire a recruitment officer or take the services of recruitment agencies to hire the right employees for your organization.
Taking the help of professionals for the hiring process might cause you extra expenses. But in this way, you can ensure that you are not only hiring the right employees but are hiring employees who will stick with you for a longer time.
4. Facing rejection
Facing rejection is one of the prevalent challenges that are faced by entrepreneurs. You will be rejected for your idea, age, and experience in the business world. No matter what you do, you can’t avoid the rejections. You will be rejected for one or another thing.
Only a person who has unshakable trust and unbreakable confidence in his idea can survive the rejections in such a scenario.
The toughest part of rejection is that you will not only be rejected by strangers, but your friends and family will also reject you. Therefore, you need to stay headstrong when faced with rejections.
You should seek the company of people who have a positive attitude and believe in you and your idea. In addition to this, you can make friends with new entrepreneurs out in the market.
They can understand your situation better as they might be going through the same phase or have been there in the past. If they can’t provide you a solution, they can at least support you. Their support will help you to face the challenges.
5. Decision-making
Taking decisions on your own, while being aware that a wrong decision can cause you losses, is one of the common challenges entrepreneurs face. Therefore, decision-making can be classified as one of the most stressful challenges of all the challenges faced by entrepreneur.
As you are a business owner, you will be required to take all big to small decisions for your company on your own. The stress of decision-making is real and can’t be avoided.
However, with experience and with thorough analyses, you will learn to make quick and right decisions.
6. Facing criticism
Another challenge that an entrepreneur faces is criticism. You will be criticized by people who know you and who don’t know you. They will warn you about your business idea and tell you the consequences of a failed business. They might impose their insecurities on you.
In addition to this, you will be criticized by people who are jealous or might fear your business’s success. They will criticize you for stopping you from working on your idea.
They might be considering your business as a threat to their own business. In such a scenario, you should also focus only on the positive side and be in the company of people who support your idea.
Make a network with experienced business people. You can learn lessons from their experience and can use their expertise to grow your business.
7. Staying focused
Staying focused is a challenge faced by entrepreneurs and especially young entrepreneurs. You might have invented a product, or your business idea is excellent, but it will all be wasted if you don’t know how to stay focused.
Being an entrepreneur might look fun, but it is not fun. You can become an entrepreneur by having a new business idea or a revolutionary product, but you can become successful only if you are focused on growing your business.
Sometimes, young entrepreneurs get distracted by small temporary successes and forget what their ultimate goal is. Keep your goal in mind and stay clear of all distractions. Staying focused is the only way to build a successful business.
8. Missing out on life
Missing out on life is a challenge that all entrepreneurs face, and it is not a temporary challenge that they will face at the beginning of their careers. They will face this challenge throughout the journey.
Entrepreneurship is not easy. You will be required to put your all into becoming a successful entrepreneur. There will be many incidents working alone in your office on a festival night or a special day like your birthday. You will be required to sacrifice your family time, me time, and your leisure time to make your business successful.
Don’t worry. This will all pay off if you become successful in establishing your business. You can take inspiration from all the great entrepreneurs of the world.
9. Being the visionary
An entrepreneur is someone who continuously thinks and plans about the future. You will be expected to come up with innovative ideas from time to time.
Your employees will look towards you when they are faced with a challenge that they can’t handle. It will be your responsibility to come up with innovative ideas to help your team move forward.
10. Facing competition
Once you are out in the market and your business is growing. The first challenge that you will face is the competition. Your competitors will be not only new businesses but also be seasoned companies.
Giant companies especially take advantage of inexperienced entrepreneurs. Either they try to buy them out or become their competitor. As your business owner, it will be your responsibility to answer your competitors and come up with ideas to meet competition.
11. Stress and self-doubt
Starting a new business from scratch is a stressful job, and it is normal for one to self-doubt in such a situation. There will be thousands of responsibilities on your shoulders, and you will be required to think about the ideas to continuously make your business profitable.
Entrepreneurship brings countless challenges with it, and as the stake is higher, so will be the stress. There will be nights when you will not get any sleep, and there will be a time when you will doubt your decision about building your business.
In such a scenario, remember that it happens with everyone who dares to dream. Keep reminding yourself of the goal that you want to reach. In addition to this, you can take the help of meditation, self-help books, motivational podcasts, and counseling.
12. Marketing
Once you have set up your business and have a product or service to offer, the next thing that you are required to do is the right marketing of your business. Marketing has a vital role to play in the success of a business. Proper marketing can make your business hit overnight, whereas the wrong marketing can ruin your business’s image.
Marketing helps you reach and attract the right customers for you. Without customers, your business is nothing. Therefore, as an entrepreneur, it will be a crucial decision that you will make. You will have to choose the platform and methods to market your product. In addition to this, choosing the budget for marketing will also be taken by you.
You can either take the help of a professional or build your marketing team to promote your products.
13. Health
As an entrepreneur, another thing that you will put at stake is your health. There will be many times you will miss to eat your lunch. There will be many sleepless nights when you will either be working the whole night or be up the entire night because of stress.
Make sure to take out time for your health as you will need good health to enjoy the fruits of your success.
14. Loneliness
One challenge faced by entrepreneurs is “loneliness.” Every entrepreneur has felt alone one or another time, and it is kind of a struggle that no one talks about. Entrepreneurship is something that comes with no rule book or manual. You will never be prepared for it, and you will learn by getting involved.
You will be so busy figuring out everything that you will not have time to see your friends and family. You will lose many friends just because of a lack of time. But remember that you are making these sacrifices for your better future.
Once your business starts running on its own, and you have a team that you can trust and rely on, try to take time out once in a while for your family to don’t feel lonely.
15.Facing unknown challenges
There will be times when you will encounter a problem that you have never thought that would exist. Therefore, the question of being prepared for the unknown shouldn’t be there. In such a scenario, you will need your creative mind to deal with the situation.
Conclusion
An entrepreneur builds his business from scratch and works on a new company that no one has ever worked on before. Therefore, facing challenges from time to time is common. However, if you are mentally prepared to meet the challenges, it will become a little easy for you to tolerate the stress associated with entrepreneurship.
