The Fears That Prevent Aspiring Entrepreneurs from Starting a Business
The world is full of aspiring entrepreneurs, who more often than not have an entrepreneurial spirit within them. Which means they have ideas and a vision. They read and learn all they can about their niche and imagine themselves having a business. But often, they never start.
The biggest barrier standing in the way to actually starting a company, building a website, pitching clients, offering your services or creating a product, is fear.
There are many fears that prevent aspiring entrepreneurs from taking the first step. However, taking action is crucial. It’s important to get started and keep taking steps on a daily basis from then on.
If you’re one of those aspiring entrepreneurs, keep in mind you’ll never be satisfied with your lifestyle unless you start a business. That’s the best way to use your talents and the smartest thing to invest your precious time into. It can lead to success in your niche, fulfillment, meaningful work, contribution, and profits. That’s why it’s worth defining the fears stopping you from taking action towards this. Here are a few common ones and what to do about each:
- Fear of failure.
Starting a limited company is a risky venture. Following this path is not easy and it’s fairly likely that you won’t succeed with your first business idea. However, the only real failure is giving up. Until then, you’re simply testing, learning and pivoting.
Fearing failure is a huge distraction. An aspiring entrepreneur can be terrified of all the possible negative scenarios he plays in his head. Imagining what could go wrong isn’t a good use of your time. But there are ways to turn that into something positive.
Think of it this way. Success can’t exist without the possibility of failure and without failure itself. It’s impossible to know what will work out in the end. So the only way to find out is to simply do it. If you don’t reach your goal now, at least you’ll have gained some experience, and can be better prepared if you decide to relaunch or start a new venture altogether. The more you fail, the more you find out what’s not right and the closer you get to the one business idea that will not just work but will transform the rest of your life.
- Uncertainty.
The second biggest fear stopping you from setting up your own business is connected to the uncertainty of entrepreneurship.
Not knowing whether you’ll fail or not is just one example. There’s also not knowing what your next step should be, whether it’s worth investing all your resources in this one project, whether you should leave something behind and focus your efforts on the next item on the list, whether you hired the right people, and so on.
Wondering what’s right can continue forever. What’s worse, though, is that it can stop you from actually doing things related to the business.
If you approach every venture and aspect of business as a learner, things will be different. Then uncertainty won’t matter. All you’ll need to know is that you will keep trying until you succeed and that you have all it takes to be an entrepreneur.
- Fearing what others might say.
Do you ever wonder if others are going to laugh at your big goals? If they will try to discourage you? If your loved ones won’t understand? If failing will also mean humiliation?
Other people in your life might be a huge obstacle to setting up a business. But this doesn’t have to be the case.
It’s okay if no one in your life wants the same. In fact, don’t even share what’s on your mind, especially the big objectives. You’ll scare and confuse your friends and family. They might not see the good side of all these risks you’re taking.
At the end of the day, it’s just you and your desire to be an entrepreneur. It’s not going away, but your progress may be slowed down if you start listening to others.
Let go of this. Share what you’re doing only after you’ve started making some money from it. Then people will take it seriously and will support you.
- Not having enough experience.
There’s this voice in the head of aspiring entrepreneurs telling them they aren’t ready. Maybe you think you’re too young, don’t have the experience, the knowledge, the connections. Whatever it is, it’s one of those fears you need to conquer.
It’s worth studying the success stories of successful founders, serial entrepreneurs and small business owners. Usually, you’ll notice the same thing – they all started from nothing.
People who are billionaires today and whose products are changing industries were once passionate aspiring entrepreneurs who had no idea what they were doing. But they did their research, tried a few things and failed, learned from their mistakes, and eventually succeeded.
So leave that fear behind and go gain that experience in the best way possible – by getting to know your chosen market, forming connections with potential clients, learning from experts and giving your own ideas a try.
- It will be too stressful.
Another fear that might be blocking your creative energy, productivity and focus is the thought that you simply won’t be able to handle it when things start happening.
Whether it’s launching a startup and having to please investors, investing all your savings into the first product you’re building, leaving your regular job early on and having to rely on your business income to provide for your family. All these can lead to sleepless nights, burnout, anxiety, stress, and even depression.
But there are ways to get around this. For a start, prepare. Validate a business idea before you build any product. Save enough or stay at your day job longer even after the business is making profits for a few months. Have other income streams from day one and don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Say ‘no’ to many other things taking away your time, attention and energy, so you can dedicate all your free time to growing the business.
- Growing too quickly.
Starting a business is scary. But after the first few steps, it’s okay. In fact, you might get used to being small and running the company and even a few people on your team effectively. But what if your content goes viral, you partner with a big brand or one of your products seems to gain a lot of attention from people on social media? You can’t just stop and say ‘no’ to the opportunities in front of you.
Another one of the fears of aspiring entrepreneurs is growing the business quickly before they’ve learned how to manage more money and a bigger company.
While that’s not an easy thing, it can happen. You need to trust your ability to adapt and learn as you go. If you do get to the next stage faster than planned, it may means you’ll be able to get help. You may be able to afford to get experts on board to handle the most important aspects of business for you. You can delegate a ton of work so you aren’t overwhelmed and can instead focus on what you do best.
Believe in yourself and don’t even think about business growth before you’ve made the first step. Otherwise, it can turn into a distraction and even a reason not to begin in the first place.
- Fearing the competition.
Last but not least, you might be afraid of the big number of competitors in your niche or the few big names dominating the industry.
That shouldn’t stop you from trying to build a name for yourself. Keep in mind that it might take years to build an audience and get a share of the market. But you don’t need that to happen in the early days.
When setting up the business, your goal is to build the foundation of what might one day turn into an empire. You will begin making some money and can then diversify that income. Once you feel some stability, you can change direction, experiment, invest more, try new strategies or a whole new business model.
Competition is good because those already making big bucks in your niche are proof there’s interest and demand. If you manage to give people a better offer or product, they will gladly pay you too.
So instead of fearing the competition, make it part of your marketing research. Learn all you can about your biggest competitors and see what you can do better to differentiate yourself.
Now that you know what the biggest fears you’ll have to overcome look like, you can do something about each in advance. Don’t let them stop you from pursuing your goals.
Providing a daily digital source for motivation and inspiration for the perfect work/life balance.
Responses