What are the biggest mistakes made by startup entrepreneurs?

The main issue with entrepreneurs is that some don't spend enough money while some spend lots of money.

Collect market data for the stream of business, analysis of data and Risk calculation & mitigation plan is utmost important. Any GAP in this can lead to disaster.

proper planning

al

The biggest mistake that aspiring entrepreneurs
make is doing nothing. The reason they don't
do anything, besides procrastinating, is that they
want to make sure everything is perfect, they want
to get an MBA first, get a new computer first, or
whatever. The thing to do is just get started doing
something. Even if you fall on your face, you will
learn from your mistakes and do some things
differently the next time you start a business.

Borrowing money, in place of gathering experience.

So often I see newbies thinking they need to borrow money to start a business...without any experience in the business at all.

Starting a coffee shop, without ever working in a coffee shop. Without even knowing if they would like owning a coffee shop.

And borrowed money for startups usually goes to cover mistakes made. Mistakes that are completely avoidable, if the newbie would just study the business they are wanting to start.

So they borrow thousands of dollars (maybe a second mortgage) lose the money in a few months, because the have no idea where to invest it in their business, and then the business fails...because they ran out of money...because they had no idea what they were doing.

Most businesses, especially online businesses, can be started for almost no money. It takes study, asking questions of people already in that business, finding the right suppliers, learning what marketing works and what doesn't.

You don't borrow money to start a business. You learn the business (the hard start ups are the most instructive), and after it's generating profit, you can borrow to increase the expansion rate.

I've owned a few businesses in my life. None required a loan. All grew by investing profit back into the business. It's the slower...surer way.

The second mistake I see is thinking the product or service is the business. Nope. The marketing and selling is the business. Marketing isn't a detail to be hired out. It's the entire business.

If you start a business already knowing how to market and sell whatever it is you do...the business will succeed.

I own a vacuum cleaner store. I used to speak at the convention every year. Once I asked the audience what business they were in. Universally they said "The vacuum cleaner business".

I said "No. If you're successful...in the top 5%...you are in the "marketing of vacuum cleaners" business.. The marketing is what makes it successful, or makes it a business that is slowly dying. There are legends in our business. They are never legends because of their inventory control, or what brand they sell. They are legends because of their sales and marketing".

At the convention, I would walk around listening to the conversations in the halls. Without exceptions, the people talkin about the actual product (and problems in the business) were the ones barely getting by. The rare groups talking about marketing, advertising, and selling...were the people in the money.

I hope that helps.

I think it's a really broad question.
But in big picture, is this:
-to differentiate the 'business' skill vs the 'technical' skill. e.g. running restaurant business vs cooking, it's 2 different things
-managing cashflow, where the money comes from n outflow, budgeting
-hiring the wrong people/team
-leadership
-finally, can't sell enough to break even , more importantly to make profit


those 5 are very important stuff

claude..you are correct that those are the biggest reasons ..

i think one thing outside of most peoples awareness..is building the skills to sell products at high price points with good margins ..lower prices with lower margin need much higher volumes to get near the same profit

with internet marketing or digita marketing ..you can turn the marketing into a source of income . but many try to make that the business ..

#1 problem I've seen in a decade of doing strategy calls with founders: they have nowhere near enough traffic to make the money they imagine making.

Like a deficiency of 10X to 100X. They're beaten before they begin and don't know it. They'll bust their butt and put all that effort in, and they failed before they started because they needed say 500 leads coming in over the month, but got 30.


Second issue noticed: founders coming up with customer avatars that only exist in one place--their minds. The customer doesn't actually exist. What happened is the founder had a brainwave, created an offer, and then went hunting for a buyer. This is the opposite of how it should work.

Happens all the time in the SaaS field: software creators coming up with a program, then realizing they need someone to sell it to. They make up some unicorn avatar who doesn't really exist. Naturally, no one will buy the software.

Rushing things to make money. When the money doesn't come as fast, they give up

Sure. Starting your own business from scratch is quite challenging especially if you don't have a technical and business expertise or lack funding.
If you are starting your own business and need technical and business support or you have a business idea that need validation.

There are so many mistakes someone new can make. I think getting carried away with other stuff, trying to do too many things at once and plain just giving up are the worst things anyone can do. In a way, though I think people should make mistakes and I think they need to. The best way to grow is knowing where you've gone wrong and doing whatever you can to find a solution. I have made my own mistakes but I do try not to think about it too much now. My advice if I was to give it to anyone just try and stick to your one thing because if that one thing is what gets all your time etc. there's more chance of it being successful.

I think not being patient enough is a big mistake, we simply want to earn without even making any effort.

Mostly...
• Inconsequent cash management
• Improper planning
• Wrong execution

The biggest mistake startup entrepreneurs make is investing money too fast trying to see if they can gamble their way to profits. They should be able to make use of free resources first and generate revenue with free methods before slowly transitioning into paid methods. This is especially with traffic. If you cannot be profitable with free methods first, there is a high chance you cannot be profitable with paid methods.

They cherry-pick the data when they come up with their plans. They end up thinking everybody's a client. Or have in mind a particular type of person, but that person will never buy from them.


And they think their business is different. So, they fight me when I tell them things they do not like. My business is different.


This is in addition to what Jason said. Yes, many come up with an offer, then go hunting for a buyer.


But even when they do not do that, they mismatch things.


Example: women who buy a particular type of shoe exists, but the best place to reach them might not be a churches' monthly magazine.


Or, there are people who want to buy a house and get a loan to fix it up before they move into it but if you're licensed only in Florida, advertising on anything that's national wastes your money. Even if your cousin Bob got you a discount there.


Another mistake I see: people do not plan thoroughly all the areas. The one they leave out the most: review things every now and again, to see what changes happened in your industry and what changes are likely to happen. And get ready.

Yes but if you can do it with out any investment it will be better but if you are investing then i think you cannot lose the money.

Lack of planning and execution. Breaking down the process in easy accomplished pieces. Commitment and funding are critical. Burning the bridge with job too soon. Bragging about what they are doing before seeing success. Lack of education about the niche/business they are entering into.

Even thou thousands upon thousands businesses like bars, restaurants etc. went down, people still believe that their bar is going to survive because they got crash course in businesses failures and because they have learned common mistakes causes , they are going to be invincible thus will succeed where others have failed.

Copycat hot money making business just because somebody have managed to make it hot.

Build it and they will come.

Believing a product will sell itself, and underestimating the amount to time and effort required to market the product.

I think most people fall in love with their idea too hard that they fail to focus on other things, such as how their idea would apply to a range of audience. While this might be subtle, it usually leave a significant adverse effect on the business in the long term

They don't believe in themselves.

They see others succeeding but they don't see it for themselves.

They focus on marketing, but ignore product development and financials

Not factoring in a marketing budget.

Trusting some maverick to create an app, website, business for you and not steal it.

Social Network- Mark Zuckerberg.

I think this the reasons :
1. Failing to Plan
2. Failing to set SMART Goals
3. Failing to ask for help
4. Failing to leverage technology
5. Failing to market

The biggest mistake i see is relying on 1 marketing strategy to bring them the life of their traffic. The next biggest mistake is not knowing cost per sale and other cost related ratios.

For me that would be thinking way to much in the product and not in the consumer. So they fabricate something they think is gold, but the reality is that no one needs that or that they are not listening what consumers really need from a product like that. Sometimes is not that the product or services is bad, is just the approach used to sell it.

I think way too many of them try too hard to be duplicates of other successful business people. While it is a good thing to learn from good people, simply copying everyone else is not necessarily the best way to figure out business. I always laugh because pretty much every business copies the others. I was the Restaurant Manager for Jack in the Box for 20 years and I was always amazed at all the other fast food places that copied us. And they copy others, too like McDonalds. Businesses copy other businesses, that's what they do. But I think new entrepreneurs trying to copy everybody else can actually be counterproductive.

One of the biggest mistake most entrepreneurs make is trying to do everything them selfs. Once you learn a skill you need to be out sourcing ask fast ask you can and focus on items that's going to create more revenue for you.

They can't afford the debt. They don't know how to take money.

Common mistakes:
Team that you can't trust and teammates that can leave you anytime
Give up fast
Start without plan
Do not split shares of the future company from the start

I think that the biggest mistake that entrepreneurs make is an investment without proper planning.

For some its never taking the proper action to get your results. For others, I have seen that they do not want to spend any money to make money. But, they want fast results. Free marketing takes time.

Everything they do is right when they are honest to their customers and not give importance to money in initial period. Customer satisfaction is most important. There should not be any kind of greed. It can spoil your business plan.

Not doing enough research on a particular niche they are wanting to get into. Then they wonder why they are spending so much money and not getting the results they want. This then leads to frustration and disappointment.

Being an entrepreneur takes time. It's not an overnight success story. It's long hours and sacrifices. It's time away from family and friends to help build your brand. But, if you take your time, plan it out and do it right, it can be very rewarding. It always helps to find a mentor who is successful in your niche who would be willing to take you under the wing and show the ropes.

I hope this information helps and good luck!

Not having a business plan before going around asking for money. You need to think as a businessman and not only as a startupper cause even if the idea is great the people that invest money want to see everything planned and if they start getting their money back in 1 ,2 or 10 years

Lack of research. Lack of education. Agreeing with gurus who tell them what they want to hear.

Rick

I'm talking about that now in one of my campaigns. I would say working on understanding traffic. I can find, build and optimize a sales funnel for a affiliate product and trickle some traffic and get leads and sales but when it comes to getting traffic to support yourself I never focused on that. I mean all it takes in just one network or traffic source and learn how to step in and hook your traffic and pull it in. Now that's the art and I wish I worked on understanding this in the very beginning.

I thought getting traffic would be the easy part because its the internet but the truth is its so big its completely opposite but once you see and get it it becomes easier to find where out potential customers are and throw some hooks out.

Spending too much money up front.

Before I spout off, those that know me, know I'm big on PLANNING (have written several courses about it) but planning is number 3 on the list...

!) They begin with a lack of an honest SELF assessment.
They ignore their past; habits, routines and default behaviors under stress.

2) They BEGIN with a lack of an honest and researched MARKET. They don't spend enough time learning what they are up against.

3) Lack of PLANS which include contingencies, time frames, dependencies on others and a general lack of planning in general.

4) Make wrong assessments as they begin, and will change horses midstream, or assume the problem is_____ without really identifying the problems, and are therefore woefully unprepared for when IT happens, and IT always does happen.

5) And this is actually WITH assessment. They lack the basic business knowledge and feel, think and act as if they will have TIME to learn it as they go.

The number one reason for Start-Up failure is simple, they don't generate enough NET profits fast enough to keep the business going forward.

All this being said, the IM starter upper doesn't care, so he dives head first from the cliffs of ignorance into the shark infested water below.

I should have more sympathy for these people. I don't.

GordonJ

i'd definitely say not enough tracking of what works and what doesn't. Early data recording would have really helped me back in the day avoid making stupid mistakes on what to focus on and what to give up on.

There is so much to this question being asked.

I am sure many people who start out in this business do not tend to hit it on the button right off the bat however believe it or not some do.

Newbies who make a mistake may...

Follow an outdated program...
Not learn enough...
Waste money on programs, trainings, advertising, and more...
Be too arrogant and think they know it all after a few sales...
Make too many negative remarks
Not work hard
Have a bad work ethic
Follow get rich schemes
Want success to quickly
Fail to figure out why only 5% of the people who work in this business make it
Quit too early

Their are many more other reasons as to why people fail in this business. A good way for newbies to learn is to gain experience without spending any money. There are so many ways to make money online without spending any money. You can learn, make sales, and then re-invest those earnings inside of your business. You will probably make mistakes however you can learn from them and you wont get too discouraged since you didn't waste any money.

My biggest issue starting out over 7 years ago was learning, promoting my business and then getting tired of what i was doing and thinking by spending a lot of money it was going to make things easier. I got Lazy. Boy was I wrong and this made me quit. Then I got hungry to make a name for myself and i continued to learn and grow in this business. Then i started spending money strategically after earning sales and this is what helped me to skyrocket to the success I am seeing today.

I'd say not knowing exactly what they have to do/not having guidelines of what to do. I "went with the flow" and it turned out to be a big mistake because when I finished something, I would immediately run into the problem of not knowing what to do next. Do enough research and have guidelines on what you're going to do, and that'll save you tons of time and headaches.

Skipping that life-changing post.

Ignoring the power of organic marketing.

A lot start in affiliate marketing thinking It's going to be a piece of cake. They get a direct link from clickbank and spam it all over social media. They should be using a landing page and building an email list.

Shiny object syndrome. Ditching something they are working on and moving onto something that they think looks better, so they never get to focus on anything.

Trying to do things for free or "on the cheap", when they need to invest in expertise.

Some entrepreneurs thinks that they don't have any competitors.

Not pivoting quickly enough if the initial concept is not working.

At our startup, we pivoted twice within a year.

What are the Biggest Mistakes Made by Startup Entrepreneurs? · Start with inadequate financial resources · Neglecting to write a business plan.