10 Mistakes every new entrepreneur makes

What are the top 10 mistakes new business owners make, or when entrepreneurs develop new products? What must an entrepreneur assume when starting a business? All these questions are fair and really important if you want your business, and yourself to succeed! We will discuss in this post books for new entrepreneurs, as well as how much money do you need to start a business, and why this question is wrong? You’ll see the most common mistakes entrepreneurs make, and I did them too! See the ten deadly mistakes on entrepreneurship, start up mistakes, and new business mistakes, and learn how to avoid them!

Top 10 mistakes new business owners make

Within the top 10 mistakes new business owners make, you will find the most common mistakes entrepreneurs make, and common entrepreneurial mistakes that you must remember. I started working on my business in 2018, and I have failed in all possible ways, and done all these ten deadly mistakes of entrepreneurship until I finally started to learn and understand how it all works!

I still do mistakes, and there still are failures, but if we really want something, we work for it, we learn from our failures, and we keep going!

What must an entrepreneur assume when starting a business?

In the post, I’ve added a few suggestions of books for new entrepreneurs and I’m explaining the concept of the question of how much does it cost to start a business along with other startup mistakes that you should be aware of. We are here to share the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make, so we can help you avoid doing the same ones! Let’s get started right away! Here are the top 10 mistakes new business owners make!

#1 No proper plan

What must an entrepreneur assume when starting a business? Well, the first and most important is, that things will go wrong. This is a fact, and it does happen to everyone, so you must prepare for it. The first and most important step you must make is to have a plan before you jump. You should read some books for new entrepreneurs that give you an overview of the business itself if you didn’t study business at university or took courses.

The worse start up mistakes, that’s also one of the top ten mistakes entrepreneurs make is that you don’t have a detailed plan. A plan that highlights a few steps and everything else you’re letting come as it comes is bad and it will lead to many unexpected issues. Unexpected issues lead to either giving up, either headaches, and panic for the time period when you get to solve these issues.

How does a detailed business plan help?

With a detailed business plan, you can overview the whole project, and you can keep an eye on the details. You know if something goes wrong how to solve it because you’ve got a structured plan in front of you, and you don’t have to try to figure things out last minute. A great business plan includes the big steps of your project, such as how much money do you need to start a business, the steps of the project, and then you must go one by one to all the main points and work them out in detail. This is the only way to be able to stay on top of things.

When entrepreneurs develop a new product, they must think about how much does it cost to start a business, and they must have a plan ahead in terms of what to do with that product. Otherwise, as we can see many entrepreneurs fail and giving up, you might end up like them. Which, you don’t want to happen, right? If you don’t, then keep reading the other mistakes entrepreneurs make!

#2 No proper structure, organization

The second of the top 10 mistakes new business owners make, and something what must an entrepreneur assume when starting a business is that you need a good structure. As I have mentioned above, the business plan must be worked out in detail beforehand. However, you must work out a business plan in steps that are doable, and structure all the work around your project the way that it actually helps.

In other words, the most common mistakes entrepreneurs make is that they don’t understand what the best structure is, and they start doing everything at once. Trying to do everything at the same time is one of the ten deadly mistakes of entrepreneurship. And I’m saying this because I’ve been there and done that! To help you understand how business works you can also get books for new entrepreneurs, such as What they DON’T teach you at Harvard Business School by Mark H. McCormack.

Remember that you are not a robot!

But in each case to avoid some of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is to understand that you’re not God, and it is humanly impossible to try to do everything at once. You need a structure for building up a business. Just like if you’d been building up a house. If a brick is missing at the bottom, most likely the whole structure will be labile, while if you don’t have a stable structure, it just might all fall in your head. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?

There are many business planners, and day-to-day planners that you can use, and once you’ve got the plan ready, well structured, to avoid startup mistakes, just take it all one by one. When you finish one task, move on to the next one. Once you’ve done the next step, move on to the third. In each case, don’t overwhelm yourself and try to do 5 random tasks at the same time. Think logically and force yourself to stick to the plan!

#3 You will need help

Maybe some of you were already trying to build a business alone, and you didn’t understand one of the most common mistakes entrepreneurs make still. You’ve been questioning yourself why things don’t work out the way you want it to? Because we are all humans, and sometimes, especially when it comes to business, we do need help!

Some of us have miscalculated when we’ve been thinking about how much does it cost to start a business, or we just had too much on our plates, because we wanted to do it alone. My own experience about new business mistakes is that I didn’t calculate well how much money do you need to start a business, and my first attempt in 2018 was a big failure. It was brutal!

The second thing that I’ve learned actually this year is that I do need help. I’ve been trying to build up to something for many years, and it did start doing some money, but not even enough to make a living. Then, I found the people in my team, and I shared with them my project idea that they loved, and they decided to join me. With their help, things are actually happening now, and we actually started to grow fast. So my personal suggestion is to learn to accept help or ask for help if you see that you’re stuck. There’s nothing wrong with asking for help, especially when entrepreneurs develop a new product, and they want to sell it, or you want to get your business up and running.

#4 Rushing

Rushing is a big one when it comes to the top 10 mistakes new business owners make, or the most common mistakes entrepreneurs make. I myself fall into this trap too, as so many of you. When we start a business, we want to set up fast everything and get the whole thing running quickly, right? We want to make money, so obviously it’s right. And this is one of the ten deadly mistakes of entrepreneurship. Just as Rome wasn’t built in a day, you can’t build a business in a day.

What must an entrepreneur assume when starting a business is that building a business and starting to earn might take months, but even years. Rushing won’t make it happen faster. It will just make you confused, overwhelmed, and you will burn out fast. And let’s just highlight how bad is to get burned out in the middle of building a business. Since I’ve learned to take everything slowly, step by step, it’s true, I work 14-16 hours a day on my business because I want to see it earning well, but I take breaks, and I mix my tasks, so I don’t get overwhelmed or burn out because I’ve been rushing or doing the same thing continuously.

My team members haven’t had much experience yet in building a business, and I love to see how are tempted to make these start up mistakes, and I can tell them to slow down and think first. We all know that period when we are full of ideas and we just want to do it all. My partner is in that period by the time I’m typing this, and I explained to her just a few days ago, that rushing is why she got burned out a week ago. And not respecting the plan and structure is what leads to daydreaming and planning new things before you get done what you should be doing results in no results.

#5 Hundreds of failures

Oh yes, if you’re new in business, you better keep this in mind and prepare for it. When entrepreneurs develop a new product, they might fail in selling it, they might fail in marketing, but there are many other ways to fail. Another reason why it’s great to read books for new entrepreneurs like The Startup by Eric Ries, or The 7 habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey. The other self-development book that you should definitely consider reading is the F**K IT by John C. Parkin.

The F*CK IT book can really help you understand how things work in the world, and it can help you start seeing the problems, and the failures as well from a whole different perspective. Since you’re new in the field it’s obvious that you will do some of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make, because failing is how you can learn!

Fails come with the process. It might come because you didn’t know how much money do you need to start a business, and you didn’t calculate well how much does it cost to start a business. It may be because you didn’t stick to your plans, or you didn’t have a structure, you burned out, or simply just something went wrong that wasn’t under your control. And this is absolutely normal! Failing is normal and it’s a good thing!

One of the top ten mistakes entrepreneurs make is that they see a failure as it is, a failure. But remember one thing if you want to be successful! Failure is just a test. A challenge that you must get through. Just like an obstacle in a video game. You didn’t stop playing Mario just because a mushroom attacked you, right? Well, force yourself to look at the failures just like they were mushrooms in the Mario video games. If you set your mind to accept that failures are just tests that you have to get through, you will never actually fail!

#6 Lack of consistency

My favorite one these days from the top 10 mistakes new business owners make is the lack of consistency. Is my favorite, because I’m torturing my team for two weeks to get them all to understand this one simple but crucial concept. It is one of the most common mistakes entrepreneurs make that they fail to keep up the consistency. This is really true especially for online businesses, blogs, and websites like #bossladywannabe where the way of growing is to keep consistently publishing our articles, no?

When it comes to the ten deadly mistakes of entrepreneurship, the lack of consistency is one of the worse that a new business makes. And now, I’m going to explain to you the same I’ve been explaining to my team in the past weeks. If you stop, if you don’t concentrate, if you don’t find the reason that keeps you going you will start having a lack of consistency that will stop not just you, but the whole business. When you want to build a business, you can’t just decide that you will take a week off at the beginning, or that you rather do less, or do something else instead of concentrating on the tasks that help to grow that business.

And as we all know, the longer the break you take, the harder to catch up and have the same enthusiasm as before. For your business, it might actually be a complete breakdown, depending on what you’re doing, if you don’t have consistency. It’s just how the Instagram business accounts’ algorithm works. The more you publish, the more engagement you get, your pictures tend to arrive in more and more people. If you don’t have the mood to publish for a few weeks, you’ll most likely won’t have the enthusiasm either to start publishing every day. Moreover, the algorithm will just simply start showing your work to fewer and fewer people.

No matter what industry you are in, consistency is the key to success!

#7 Way too many working hours

What must an entrepreneur assume when starting a business? If consistency is one side of the coin, working too much is definitely the other. Are you super enthusiastic about your business and you just want to spend all your time working and building it? One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is working way too many hours. I must admit, out of the top 1 mistakes new business owners make, I’m doing this one too, still.

Since work for me doesn’t at all feel like work, I tend to work 14-16 hours a day, 7 days a week. I do not mind working that much at all. And maybe you don’t mind either working that much, but this is one of the most common entrepreneurial mistakes! Why? I’m going to tell you just the effects I discovered on myself in the past months. First, the back pain. I’m sitting all day long on a chair now with continuous back pain. For a few months, since I started building my startup I stopped doing yoga, cycling or going to the gym. Also, since I’m always concentrated on my work, I stopped drinking enough water, and stopped cooking and eating enough, and eating healthy. And I do understand my point of view since I must make this business happen fast, but nothing is worth our health and well-being. (*yoga break since I reminded myself*).

What you can do?

The best you can do if you do want to work as much as humanly possible is to plan your week ahead and make yourself plans for each day. Do a work plan, but put it in there your workout, eating, and whatever else you should be doing a day to stay healthy and have the energy and well-being to keep going with your business too. Another important thing to do is when you decide to not work, in your free time do things that are really interesting, new, exciting. For example, I, since I started working on my startup when I decide to not work half a day or a full day I do things like going cycling in the hills, visiting a beautiful place in my region, or doing more interesting sports like rock climbing.

Motorbike rides are one of my favorite ways to clear my mind, but even if I decide to go out with friends I completely leave work behind and try to stay in the present, enjoy the moment, and make all these moments really special. Then, these great moments and experiences give me the energy to keep going the rest of the week, and I never spend my free time with things like, laying on the sofa and watching a movie. That’s not recharging, not challenging, not exciting, and definitely not motivating.

All summed, remember that you are not a robot, you are a human being! Your body needs to rest, to recharge, and your mind needs great and exciting things, nice moments to recharge and keep you focused.

#8 You can get bankrupt

Here’s another favorite highlight when you ask what must an entrepreneur assume when starting a business! You must ask yourself before actually doing something how much does it cost to start a business, but one of the most common mistakes entrepreneurs make is to not calculate properly. The most realistic way to calculate business costs and profit possibilities is to calculate the costs and then double or triple them. For the profits, calculate it, then divide in two or three.

Unfortunately, a new business has to potential to need more investment than you’ve expected, but it also has the potential to earn less than expected. Here comes another of the start up mistakes, that you can actually get bankrupt. It did happen to me when I first started to build my business in 2018. As I myself made all these entrepreneur mistakes I have listed above, and I will do, later on, being bankrupt happened to me too.

I completely miscalculated how much my startup will cost, I didn’t take care of my money during the process while I also made a lot of mistakes, and I failed a lot of times, and in the end, I found myself alone on the other side of the world with no money and a huge bank loan. I had to postpone for 3 years to re-launch my start up plan because I just couldn’t afford anymore to continue since I lost all my money. This is something you should be really careful about! And I’m going to explain why in the next section!

#9 Profit delay

So when you ask how much does it cost to start a business, as I just mentioned above, you must calculate be aware of the downside of miscalculating and getting bankrupted. When you want to start a business the question is not how much money do you need to start a business, but how much money do you need to arrive at the point where your business is profitable! In the end, that’s what will keep it going, no? If you just invest in starting a business, what are you going to do if you remain with no money during the period that you get to make it start earning?

The most common mistakes entrepreneurs make is this, expecting that your business will start earning in the shortest time period possible. No! You should definitely do the opposite. Calculate with the longest term you feel that the business can start earning. If you don’t have undoable expectations, the chance of being bankrupted or having to shut down the whole thing is lower!

If you want to really avoid new business mistakes, then remember well this is one of the top ten mistakes entrepreneurs make! I know you’re excited, and you just can’t wait to get rich and put your business out there, but the more realistic you are, the better chances you have to actually have a business to put out there!

As I said that rushing is one of the mistakes we all make, trying to rush your business and expect it to be profitable in the shortest time period is just leading to failure. If you’re starting a business, you want to have that business running in a few years too, right? Well, in that case, remember that profits might come much later than what you’ve been expected, and prepare for this possibility in advance!

#10 Miscalculating the investment needed

When entrepreneurs develop new products can happen to miscalculate the investment to sell those products. It is one of the top 10 mistakes new business owners make, and it’s directly linked to the previous two points we highlighted, that you did miscalculate the investment. As I said, the question isn’t how much money you need to start a business, but how much money you need in total until you get that business profitable.

The biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is that they don’t calculate into the plan all expenses. For example, you write a book, that you want to auto-publish, but you didn’t calculate just the cost of the platform where you write, and maybe the pictures if you’ve used. But what about paying a fee on Kindle to publish your book? Or what about some marketing money? Or even more, what about the cost of printing that book? Marketing it? Shipping it?

Do you get what I mean? If you’ve got a business idea, a product idea, and you throw yourself in it without having a plan and calculating your investments, you might end up having a product that could sell but you can’t afford to do the next steps or having a business that could earn well, but you’re out of funds so you have to place it on hold or keep going and earning very little money for a longer period. Miscalculating your investment is definitely one of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make, and it is one of the ten deadly mistakes of entrepreneurship!

Wrapping up: What must an entrepreneur assume when starting a business? Start up mistakes

So we’ve discussed what must an entrepreneur assume when starting a business, as well as we’ve seen some books for new entrepreneurs. We also discussed the wrong concept for the questions on how much does cost to start a business, and also how much money do you need to start a business. With all these, highlighting the top 10 mistakes new business owners make, such as myself.

You’ve now seen some of the most common mistakes entrepreneurs make, start up mistakes, new business mistakes, and how to try to avoid them. I hope me sharing these ten deadly mistakes of entrepreneurship will help you rethink your business and strategy, both personal and business, and it will help you succeed to build a successful and profitable business for yourself!

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