First time entrepreneurs (like me) are always so passionate about their ideas that they forget or can’t see the obvious. For all the first timers and as a reminder to self, here is a compilation of some of the mistakes that I have made in the last two years or learnt from interacting with fellow entrepreneurs.
Remember: Ideas are thrilling. Opportunities are tantalizing. Dreams are exciting. Yet, execution is everything. If you keep getting distracted by the latest trends your best ideas will get ignored.
Too much dependency on select clients: Sometimes the Pareto Principle can play havoc in the growing stages of a startup. Imagine two or three clients yielding 70% of the revenue and one fine day, one or worse still, two of them decide to either slow down or to stop engaging you with new work. Suddenly, there is sharp decline in revenues. It becomes difficult to manage expenses and in extreme cases you may have resources sitting idle until the time you find a replacement client. This can be killing and mentally taxing for the founders. As they say in the financial markets, one should always hedge out such risks.
Not delegating enough work: Make sure you delegate enough work to people who will sweat it out for you. Believe in your employees, because if you don’t believe in their abilities then no one ever will. Take breaks at regular intervals to avoid being burnt out and don’t spend too much time working on trivial tasks. Avoid emergencies that delay attention to high priority and high impact tasks.
- No clear roadmap to bring a particular task to completion
- Promises to build the next big thing collectively, but not payments
- The need for a face-to-face meeting for something as trivial as sharing content for a digital creative
- Mindless people who would not value our time
Believe me on personal experience here; having an established client intake process can go a long way in delivering your projects successfully on time without any hassles.
Over commitment on the timelines: I’m quoting a few lines from an article I read on INC written by Jeff Haden who I closely follow on twitter. “Nothing ever goes as quickly as you predict; in a start-up, time passes in reverse dog years. Create timelines but always factor in scenarios and sensitivities. “
If you are in services, you need to have concrete plans, you need to stick to timelines and most importantly deliver on your commitments. Think twice before committing timelines to your clients.
But being the top authority one should strongly consider that it is up to you to set the right expectations from the juniors else it will start hurting job performance. If you need to reprimand or in extreme scenario fire an employee, go ahead, just do it and don’t look back. Remember, you’re the one in charge and your goal is to not let the business suffer, come what may.
Playing the blame game: When you are onto something new, failure is bound to happen. Failure isn’t about not being accountable. It’s about being highly accountable, owning up, and taking responsibility for understanding project mishaps. Seriously analyze what led to the failures you experienced.
- Deliberate Deviation/ Inattention: This could be the worst scenario that could plague a startup business and can mar your business reputation immensely. Take immediate action as there is no excuse for this.
- Incompetence: Try to find if appointing a person can solve this issue. Plug off the cord if you feel you aren’t competent enough to service your client. Bad reputation can undo a lot of good work done previously.
- Process Inadequacy: As you grow, start emphasizing the need to define processes to function smoothly as a coherent unit.
- The Difficulty of the Task/The Complexity of the Process: Assign complex or difficult tasks to someone who is competent to handle them or own them yourself.
Remember to approach the problem strategically, and take responsibility. Don’t attack others as more often than not the other person will put up defensive walls, justify his/her actions and point out flaws in your behavior. Feelings get hurt, tempers flare and the issue itself rarely gets resolved or even discussed in a constructive manner.
Most importantly, be prepared to say “I’m sorry”. It defuses anger and builds trust.
Understanding what your clients expect out of you can eventually help you establish a strong and long term rewarding relationship with them. In the process, always explore cross selling possibilities but beware not to oversell yourself.
Making commitments in unchartered territory: How often as startup guys, we are tempted to work in unexplored areas and trying out things for which we don’t have the skill set. Sometimes in a spurt, we make commitments to work in unexplored areas. While it’s a good thing to explore new stuff but make sure you do a small trial to establish viability beforehand.
Early Expansion: Define processes while not making them over complicated, don’t venture into mindless opportunities, and most importantly avoid throwing money at everything while you are expanding else you could be on course to die a tragic death during the perilous transitional growth phase.
I think the article 5 Traps to Avoid When Growing Your Business sums up this topic beautifully.
In Conclusion: As an entrepreneur, I have made many of the aforementioned mistakes, but none has deterred me to take the next step forward. I have always tried to make a conscious effort to calculate the risks and rewards before taking business decisions and luckily my partners, family and friends have always stood by me. Starting a business can be one of the hardest things one can do because of the precariousness, the lack of a support structure and a total disregard of the typical safety zone we are so used to. But the rewards are far greater than the sacrifices. And in the end, once you have made your mark (big or small), it will be more gratifying than you could have ever dreamt.
About the Author
Lakshdeep Rajput is a co-founder at Green Apple Solutions, a Delhi based Social Media Marketing and technology firm with over 75 clients across the globe. He manages a team of 25 young and energetic people and has been living his entrepreneurial dream day in and day out for over two years now.
Image sources:
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