Why Entrepreneurship Might not be for You
by Startacus Admin
Entrepreneurship is a lot more than deciding to start a business, coming up with a business name and logo, building a website and watching the customers flood in. There are a lot of unique challenges and ups and downs people don’t necessarily expect when they set out to work for themselves. With that in mind, here are some way in which entrepreneurship might not be for you, and vice versa.
Self-discipline and motivation
There is, of course, no one to hold you accountable, to reprimand you, or to otherwise give you a reason outside of yourself to do everything you have to do. You have to make yourself get up and go to work (even if that’s just the desk in your spare room), spend time making and cultivating a network, marketing and connecting with customers, dealing with difficult clients, etc. In reality doing this day in, day out, can be harder than it at first seems.
Entrepreneurship is hard work - harder work than typical 9 to 5 employment. You might think that you’ll instead ‘work smart’, but unfortunately that won’t fly with entrepreneurship. You can channel Einsteinian intelligence into your work, and it won’t get you far without adding in hard work.
There are sacrifices to be made, difficult decisions, and without strong self-discipline and the willingness for hard work, you’re doomed to fail.
Energy and passion
An entrepreneur needs an unlimited supply of energy and a great passion for their work. Not in the sense of being able to happily jump out of bed in the morning, go running for two hours before work, and then graft right the way through till bedtime; rather in the sense that they need the energy and passion to see them through the darker points of entrepreneurship and to keep fresh and ahead of the game.
While an employee might sit at the same desk entering the same numbers into the same spreadsheet for 30 years, as an entrepreneur, you will need to constantly change and adapt, evolve and innovate. Every time you get comfortable with your work, it will be time to change it in some way or you’ll never truly be able to compete with the other businesses constantly popping up trying to take your place. This also takes both energy and passion, or it will be easy to become weary and cynical.
Responsibility
Certainly, once you’re a millionaire and your product or service is in every country on the planet, you can hire people to handle all the different aspects of the business, but until then, it’s all you. If you aren’t comfortable making all of the decisions and taking all of the blame as well as the credit, you might want to rethink entrepreneurship. Having your own business is full of uncertainty and and instability - when you are an employee, you are happy to leave these worries to the boss, but when you are the boss, are you able to handle these things hanging over your head at all times?
Big picture and patience
Just as an employee doesn’t expect to be promoted a few weeks after starting work, an entrepreneur must know that success will take time and dedication. Success is the culmination of a lot of hard work building a client/customer base, marketing, perfecting the product or service, and a lot more besides. All of this requires patience.
And because success isn’t instant, an entrepreneur also needs to be able to think long-term, planning for the future, for the big picture. They need to make the right moves that will have the right results weeks, months, even years down the line, while allowing for all the fluctuations that inevitably come in any industry.
Comfort
Entrepreneurship is for people who are comfortable with risk taking and generally being contrary to convention, those who don’t mind insecurity or people thinking they’re crazy. Of the entrepreneurs that have turned things on their heads, how many of them do you think were comfortable with the way things were, and with being like everybody else?
While you may do well starting a business selling candles or dog grooming, the most successful entrepreneurs are the ones who see a problem or a lack or a void, and work towards fixing or filling. The likes of PayPal, Netflix, Google, and YouTube don’t exist because their founders looked at the world and saw nothing to fix or improve, and if you don’t either, do you really have what it takes to be an entrepreneur?
Don’t be too disheartened if this doesn’t paint a picture of you. This isn’t a case of either you have it or you don’t, either you fit the profile 100% or you’re not allowed in the club. None of this is necessarily inherent, and you can learn many of the more important qualities of successful entrepreneurs. At the end of the day, if you want to be an entrepreneur badly enough, you can still make it work.
If you think entrepreneurship is still for you - great stuff. Now, read Why your Startup will fail to get some more perspective and then some great tips on moving from corporate life to self-employment.
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Published on: 1st February 2017
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