Starting a business is surely very thrilling and exciting! It helps you become something more, helps you gather first-hand experience. You are enthusiastic! But everything comes at a cost and all of the development, the experience & the sheer focus to learn, to develop skills; with difficulties; with hurdles. In the journey of starting a business to succeed, problems are an integral part of it. So, let’s look at the biggest problems you might face while starting a business and how to deal with them.
1. Not Enough Money: Start-ups and new businesses mostly have concerns, but money always tops the list no matter how large scale or small scale the start-up is. Business costs money and in most cases, a LOT of money. But fortunately, the time we live in is filled with opportunities to overcome that hurdle. Let’s have a look at a few of them:
- Gig Economy: Apart from the usual part-time work and money, the gig economy is something you can look forward to, if you want flexible hours, an amount of money that is worth your time, and to work on something that interests you rather than drains you. It’s a step-up from the orthodox 9-5 job which sucks the energy and motivation out of you.
- Crowdfunding: One colossal caveat to crowdfunding is one, which most don't understand; the power of crowdfunding for the most part comes through advertising, not in the cash. Truth be told, the capability of virality that goes inseparably with crowdfunding makes it almost difficult to compute and get ready for the aftereffects of your projects.
2. Not Leveraging the Digital Tools and Connections: Not leveraging the Digital Tools and Connections is one of the biggest problems you can face. That too in an age where there has been a sudden boost of connectivity, increasing interactions, and much. To cross this hurdle, you can focus on major LinkedIn groups, socializing through Instagram and Facebook groups, and creating Twitter lists!
3. Bad Time Management Skills: On the off chance that you say you need more time; be certain you're being straightforward with yourself on how and where you're investing your energy. It doesn't make any difference how quick or slow you go, as long as you gain ground and don't stop. There is a reason why early mornings are preferred if you are looking for time management. In the mornings most of the variables are under your control. The precedent time of day is unforeseen but in the morning it’s always up to you. Manage your time, create to-do lists, sort your priorities and thus better your management skills!
4. Not enough Experience: Real leader delegates. Do not try to learn everything by yourself. Hire people who are smarter than you! Create an army of amazing people who share your vision because it's the people who build a company. Use these to your advantage to gather experience and also broaden your skill set!
5. Validate Your Ideas: When we think about starting our business, we forget that it's not for us, it's for people. Our idea needs to solve a problem that exists in the market; an idea that caters to your target audience. Therefore, before you pour all your money and resources into it, you must validate your ideas. How to rectify if your idea is not good enough?
- Show your plan to your friends or family who keep it "real" with you.
- Use BETA testing programs to test your tools
- Offer your services free for the first time, just to take note and remove any barrier ‘if ever’ at an early stage.
6. Personality is the Key: From an external perspective, personality appears to take a secondary lounge for the business world. There is a pattern for esteeming ability and expertise over initiative capacities. Regardless of how extraordinarily you can manage, you actually must have the capacity to get others amped up for what you're making. Particularly, in the competitive market existing today, you need to pitch to partners about everything. Here are some books which will help you get through it:
- Magnetic Sponsoring by Mike Dillard
- Influence by Rober B. Cialdini
7. Don’t know where to start? Feeling overwhelmed and don't have the foggiest idea where to begin? Maybe, you have such countless thoughts you need to rejuvenate, you don't know which one to begin with. The key is to aim on one idea, you have to work on and then confidently going forward with it! Check out the book authored by Ms. Chahat Aggarwal titled “Branding & AI” to learn more about how and where to start your business, branding, and how it plays a major role in starting a business.
8. Losing your Inspiration: There can be times when you start questioning yourself why you started in the first place. A feeling of burn-out from work might ooze you out of all the motivation and inspiration that got you going. If this sort of case arises, here’s what you should do:
- Sort out which sort of burnout you have
- Cut down and start saying ‘No’.
- Cure the disease, and not the symptoms
- Break projects into smaller divisions.
9. Fear & Burnout: Fear of failure is usually what gets you down, and makes you work day in and day out giving you burnout. Remember this, people don't fail because they take a break or they go on a holiday but they do fail because they get overwhelmed with work and they burnout. Fear is a part of life, and it's certainly not easy to overcome it. It's okay to be afraid but we do have to carry on, one step at a time and not by neglecting ourselves rather by taking good care of ourselves in the process.
In conclusion, you must know that it takes a lot of passion and risk calculation to run your own business. Expecting not to fail is just not going to get you anywhere, but learning from it and building an open approach to intellectual humility with a little tenacity will help you build a successful business!
About the Author
Chahat Aggarwal is the Founder and CEO of Impact Study Biz. Chahat is a Women Forum Member at Forbes and WEP Signatory at UN. She is also the president of India-Poland Business Council WICCI. Not just that, she is co-founder of CareByte which is an all-in-one health, fitness, and wellbeing ecosystem. She has just launched her new book - 'AI & Branding- leveraging technology to generate brand revenue', creating a way for something really different in branding.