What do you find is the single toughest part of being an entrepreneur?

[oldmanriver]

50% of the brands you see today won't be here in 20 years time either. Don't forget that in that 50% figure lie all the failed little ventures that large and small companies want to keep separate from their core business. I started and ended 2 companies last year with little failures that actually lead to 1 big success. This means that a 66% failure rate is in fact hiding the truth and this figure shouldn't put people off starting a business.

My biggest issue used to be trying to look a little bit bigger than I was. This exposed me to seeing just how poorly serviced the growth of tiny business is in the UK. Shared offices, answer services that charge you less than £10 per call, a funded way into employing and helping with the overheads to grow. All the money is put into the wrong places.

Now I am bigger, my biggest concern is, you guessed it, growth again. Just as you stop worrying about the mortgage payments and chasing debts with little companies, you suddenly can't service all the big brand names that love you all in one go!! Easy, cheap, fast access to adhoc funding would be great but doesn't seem to exist to me.

Our bank want over £3k and 4 weeks to set up an overdraft facility, every year. How's that helping?

Sorry, have you quoted me by mistake as i don't see what relevance your post has to mine?

 

[oldmanriver]

I said most not any. I should have said big risk taker and not risk taker. There is risk in everything we do. Being a wage slave for 45 years is a big risk to some. It depends on your perspective.

I don't see any difference between 'most' and 'any' simply because anyone who has started a business of any kind in any circumstance has taken a risk.

I do love all this talk of a risk free business utopia that apparently exists someone where, i guess, everyone is a millionaire and no one loses money. However some of us live in the real world and know, for a fact, the most successful people in the world still take risks, still screw it up and still lose money despite their success and experience.

 

[thebizmentor]

I don't see any difference between 'most' and 'any' simply because anyone who has started a business of any kind in any circumstance has taken a risk.

I do love all this talk of a risk free business utopia that apparently exists someone where, i guess, everyone is a millionaire and no one loses money. However some of us live in the real world and know, for a fact, the most successful people in the world still take risks, still screw it up and still lose money despite their success and experience.

I just don't agree with you. You talk in very black and white absolute terms. I personally know and have worked with many people who have taken little or no risk in setting up their businesses.

A large part of what I discuss with my clients is how to reduce risks to the absolute minimum in the beginning. A great many business failures are caused by people building the empire before they have established whether or not they have a successful business idea. In this day and age you can find out for a great many business sectors if something is going to be successful before you have left your job and spent any money.

Perhaps I have a different view on risk to you.

 

[JohnLocke1]

I personally know and have worked with many people who have taken little or no risk in setting up their businesses.

In that case you must be talking about people setting up a web designers/consultants/seo "expert" etc in their back bedroom, using the family PC whilst still holding down a full time job, as soon as you give up paid employment for self-employment a massive risk is being taken. The former certainly wouldn't come close to be called an entrepreneur.

 

[Gwekids]

Well what God gets up to in Australia when he is bored is another debate.

But I suspect the larger the company the more they invest in market research.

Hence companies like Tesco et al seldom get it wrong.

Not meaning to insult anyone,but it does seem to me that very many startups have had what they think is a good idea and think that running on there passion is enough.?:|

Earl

You really are using a lot of vague terms here that don't fit what are actually talking about. Market research allows you to evaluate changes at certain points in time. Its a necessary part of evaluation for start ups. From here, you create a marketing strategy which is a tool that allows you to constantly monitor changes in the internal and external environment...which is what folks like Tesco are doing when they are up and running. Market research is a very small part of overall strategy ( because it's only specific to a moment in time and therefore quickly dates) which is why I was disagreeing with you that it's the be all and end all for success in a business.

 

[oldmanriver]

I just don't agree with you. You talk in very black and white absolute terms. I personally know and have worked with many people who have taken little or no risk in setting up their businesses.

A large part of what I discuss with my clients is how to reduce risks to the absolute minimum in the beginning. A great many business failures are caused by people building the empire before they have established whether or not they have a successful business idea. In this day and age you can find out for a great many business sectors if something is going to be successful before you have left your job and spent any money.

Perhaps I have a different view on risk to you.

I don't have a view on risk, i just acknowledge it's existence and am not naive enough to think there has ever been or ever will be a zero risk business.

How to reduce risk, risk management, risk evaluation, market research bla bla - None of it ever eradicates risk completely.

Give me an example of a company that was set up with zero risk !

 

[Gwekids]

You really are using a lot of vague terms here that don't fit what are actually talking about. Market research allows you to evaluate changes at certain points in time. Its a necessary part of evaluation for start ups. From here, you create a marketing strategy which is a tool that allows you to constantly monitor changes in the internal and external environment...which is what folks like Tesco are doing when they are up and running. Market research is a very small part of overall strategy ( because it's only specific to a moment in time and therefore quickly dates) which is why I was disagreeing with you that it's the be all and end all for success in a business.

For some reason I can't add to the previous post and I hadn't quite finished.
I think you are very wrong telling people to focus on market research as that is often where they fail already. They do their research and think that's it..and then wonder later why it wasn't enough.

 

[davek17]

Sorry, have you quoted me by mistake as i don't see what relevance your post has to mine?

I was answering Sirearls comments and at the same time re-ficussing the post on answering the original question about the struggles you have been having as an entrepreneur.

Maybe we should all stop hijacking the thread and answer the question?

 

[astutiumRob]

Cashflow hindering development and growth.

In my experience, cashflow (and in part, an understanding of your accounts) are largest causes of problems to entrepreneurs and small business

 

[oldmanriver]

.

Maybe we should all stop hijacking the thread and answer the question?

You just gave me a flash back to my old head master in 1965

 

[davek17]

You just gave me a flash back to my old head master in 1965

Don't make me give you detention! ;-)

 

[thebizmentor]

In that case you must be talking about people setting up a web designers/consultants/seo "expert" etc in their back bedroom, using the family PC whilst still holding down a full time job, as soon as you give up paid employment for self-employment a massive risk is being taken. The former certainly wouldn't come close to be called an entrepreneur.

I think you will find a great many of today's greatest entrepreneurs started in the back bedroom, living room, car boot, coffee shop. We tend to hear about the end result and not about how it started. If you read their stories and speak to them individually you can assess how they naturally eliminated risk right at the beginning.

Risk is also all about perception. Many successful entrepreneurs when you talk to them and analyse their thoughts don't see the risk in what they were doing in the beginning. Is it a risk to give up a job when you have the self belief that you will get another one of you need it? In some ways self confidence and risk perception go hand in hand.

Ultimately what you perceive to be risky just isn't for someone else. When you really dig into the worst case scenario it often isn't that bad.

It is an interesting discussion. I may start another thread on it as we are off topic!

 

[davek17]

Yeah I have to agree that this comment also bugged me a bit.

Richard Branson started Virgin using a payphone outside his flat.

Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook (The biggest website in the world, including Google) whilst studying at uni.

Dyson toiled for years in his shed at home.

I could go on. The fact is that there is nothing wrong with starting at home, whilst doing a job and in fact there has been no better time to do htings like this with such great technology avaialble to assist you now. There will be point you need to jump but why make that a casm when it could be a step?

Isn't this what makes us Brits such great innovators?

 

[oldmanriver]

how they naturally eliminated risk right at the beginning.

NO, THEY, DIDN'T.

It's an impossibility to totally eradicate risk from any start up business. I'm sorry, maybe this sounds rude, but anyone who thinks differently is absolutely deluded. Zuckerberg faced having his entire business taken from him in a court of law. He settled instead. Pretty risky behaviour in my book. Surely there was the risk he'd spend money and time on a great idea that someone well connected with much deeper pockets got wind of it and blew him out of the water before he really got started?

 

[estwig]

Yeah I have to agree that this comment also bugged me a bit.

Richard Branson started Virgin using a payphone outside his flat.

Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook (The biggest website in the world, including Google) whilst studying at uni.

Dyson toiled for years in his shed at home.

You wanna turn your telly off mate, don't believe the hype!

 

[thebizmentor]

You wanna turn your telly off mate, don't believe the hype!

And there are many other examples of people who have done the same and are not in the the spotlight.

There are common patterns to success in entrepreneurs. One of the most common is the ability to understand, assess and eliminate risk. Many of these skills can be learned by anyone.

Don't think that there is anything mystical or magical about these people. They are not that different to everyone else.

 

[oldmanriver]

eliminate risk. .

Name me a start up business or venture that had absolutely zero risk.

 

[thebizmentor]

Name me a start up business or venture that had absolutely zero risk.

Name me a job that has 'zero risk'. Eliminate risk in the context that I am using it is not about zero risk. Eliminating risk is a process not an absolute. Just like wearing a seat belt reduces your chance of getting killed in a car. You still get in despite it not being zero risk!? The value of getting somewhere over your chance of death is something you subconsciously calculate. The point is that you do as many things as you can (if you are sensible!) to reduce your risk.

There is no black and white. Only lighter shades or grey. The best guys get as close to white as possible before they jump. That is the skill.

 

[oldmanriver]

Name me a job that has 'zero risk'. Eliminate risk in the context that I am using it is not about zero risk. Eliminating risk is a process not an absolute. Just like wearing a seat belt reduces your chance of getting killed in a car. You still get in despite it not being zero risk!? The value of getting somewhere over your chance of death is something you subconsciously calculate. The point is that you do as many things as you can (if you are sensible!) to reduce your risk.

There is no black and white. Only lighter shades or grey. The best guys get as close to white as possible before they jump. That is the skill.

This is getting very strange. Why should i name you a job that has no risk when i have never stated a risk free job exists? :|

A seat belt reduces your chances of being killed in a car crash but it does not eliminate the chance of being killed in a car crash. There are a lot of things you can do to reduce risk but it is impossible to eliminate risk.

I agree that the best people do everything they can to reduce risk, but that is not what you have said on this thread. You have stated that the best guys eliminate risk, which is factually incorrect and very misleading.

 

[JohnLocke1]

Isn't it amazing who considers themselves an entrepreneur. I stand by the fact that a back bedroom boy in full time employment is not an entrepreneur - he may well turn out to be, but at the moment he's a employee. He may well turn out to be the next Branson, but at the moment he's a million miles (and pounds) away.

Risk is risk is risk - forget your personal perception - if you leave paid employment for self-employment you are taking a risk, no matter how successful you think the business may be. If you think different your a deluded fool who hasn't felt the gut wrench of handing in your notice and effectively being unemployed, with only the belief that you will be able provide for you and yours.

As others have said, show me just one form of self-employment that is risk 100% risk free, and I'll show you a consultant

 

[dynamic08]

Using tesco as an example is silly!

they could start selling air in bottles and it would sell.

Anybody that claims to be an entrepreneur should be ignored. Tune in to bbc 1 tonight at 9pm. How many of them would call them selves entrepreneurs?

nearly all of them I'm guessing but are they no probably not even 1 of them are entrepreneurs.

An entrepreneur is not someone that is making a few quid and is running 3 or 4 different websites. He is somebody (and they usually are he's) that is turning over hundreds of thousands of pounds profit and is continually moving into different markets and overtaking the competetion.

 

[JamieM]

Using tesco as an example is silly!

they could start selling air in bottles and it would sell.

Anybody that claims to be an entrepreneur should be ignored. Tune in to bbc 1 tonight at 9pm. How many of them would call them selves entrepreneurs?

nearly all of them I'm guessing but are they no probably not even 1 of them are entrepreneurs.

An entrepreneur is not someone that is making a few quid and is running 3 or 4 different websites. He is somebody (and they usually are he's) that is turning over hundreds of thousands of pounds profit and is continually moving into different markets and overtaking the competetion.

How did you come up with that definition of an entrepreneur?

Personally I think the word entrepreneur is over glorified and perceived wrongly. It just means a person who creates a business.

To answer the OP's question I think successful marketing is probably the toughest part.

 

[dynamic08]

The types of people I would call entrepreneurs fit into the bracket I mentioned above.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

I agree with dyno8 for me an entrepeneaur is someone who has been successful in many different disciplines, otherwise they are just successful business people.

 

[internetspaceships]

To answer the OP.

For me the biggest challenge has been being prepared to make everything else in my life secondary to achieving the goals that I want to achieve.

Also being prepared to ruthless about it and sacrifice things that other people take for granted.

Also having to face myself every day and ask myself "what could I do better?"

Being an entrepreneur is about risk. It's about becoming calculated about risk and learning by your mistakes how to balance the risk/reward elements in order to achieve the best sustainable growth.

As someone said previously, someone who works full time and runs a part time business in their bedroom isn't an entrepreneur. He becomes one when he's prepared to take that step off the cliff and live or die by what he's doing.

 

[Mustaka]

NO, THEY, DIDN'T.

It's an impossibility to totally eradicate risk from any start up business. I'm sorry, maybe this sounds rude, but anyone who thinks differently is absolutely deluded. Zuckerberg faced having his entire business taken from him in a court of law. He settled instead. Pretty risky behaviour in my book. Surely there was the risk he'd spend money and time on a great idea that someone well connected with much deeper pockets got wind of it and blew him out of the water before he really got started?

I think you are confusing risk being present to managing the factors involved in said risk so as to minimise or exclude impact from the risk in concluding your goal.

For example. I am sat on one side of a gorge and Penelope Cruz is sat on the other. Because she is smoking hot I really want to be on her side of the gorge and the only way is to jump the gorge as there are no other ways around.

So the risk present is trying to jump the gorge and not making it or stacking it in on the other side so as not to impress Miss Cruz with broken limbs and gushing blood which would obviously hinder in the copulation (my goal) I so desire.

So the factors that may affect my successful leaping of the gorge are going to be things like speed at point of take off. Actual distance I need to cover. Wind resistance or hitting a helicopter full of Chinese sight seers that are taking a tourist trip and fly out of gorge and of course gravity.

So my mate, who has the same goal as me runs and attempts to jump the gorge. Unfortunately he really did not put any thought into how the factors affecting his flight path would affect him and he falls into the gorge into the helicopter full of tourists and gets turned into red mist by its whirling blades.

I take sometime to calculate that gravity will immediately impose a 9.51 meter per second per second acceleration the very moment I leave the ground. Quickly doing some math in head I work out cover the 20 meter distance I will need a ramp at 15.8 degrees of slope and a velocity 10.7 m/s. This will mean I cover some 32.9m not taking the wind into account. I can tell from dropping a blade of grass the wind speed is less than 30kmph and will exert a maximum negative force vector impact of 5m jump distance. This will mean I have 7.9m of spare distance in case some other vector I have missed affects the jump attempt.

So having assessed the situation I buy/invest in a motorcycle from the harley dealer that happens to have a shop on my side of the gorge. I fire up the bike and due a test run to 40 kmph and all seems fine. I know I only have to reach 38.52 but decide to err on the side of caution.

Penelope has heard the noise from the bike and is watching with great glee enticing me to I start my approach. She is jumping up and down in anticipation of the spectacle. I see this jumping in slow motion as I am concentrating on the factors doing a mental check list before I commit. I have forgotten about the pesky helicopter. I quick glance down into the gorge and it is nowhere to be seen.

So everything accounted for I start my run, hit the ramp at exactly 40kmph and let physics do the rest. A short moment later I land successfully on the other side and soon am achieving my goal with the of course impressed Miss Cruze.

So yes there is risk in absolutely everything. Entrepreneurs, well at least the good ones, identify and manage the risk.

Sorry for the long email but I have to go now. Penelope is calling me.

 

[internetspaceships]

Brilliant post mate.

Simply brilliant

 

[UKSBD]

Sorry for the long email but I have to go now. Penelope is calling me.

It's been 5 minutes now,
what have you been doing with the last 4?

 

[lyndonio]

wow dynamic your views are very old fashioned mainly men? And an entrepreneur needs to run 3 or 4 websites and make 100s of thousands what are you talking about man?? All irrelevant being an entrepreneur is about taking a risk being innovative and creative and managing to prosper. There are no hard monetary values on being enterprising.

 

[oldmanriver]

I think you are confusing risk being present to managing the factors involved in said risk so as to minimise or exclude impact from the risk in concluding your goal.

For example. I am sat on one side of a gorge and Penelope Cruz is sat on the other. Because she is smoking hot I really want to be on her side of the gorge and the only way is to jump the gorge as there are no other ways around.

So the risk present is trying to jump the gorge and not making it or stacking it in on the other side so as not to impress Miss Cruz with broken limbs and gushing blood which would obviously hinder in the copulation (my goal) I so desire.

So the factors that may affect my successful leaping of the gorge are going to be things like speed at point of take off. Actual distance I need to cover. Wind resistance or hitting a helicopter full of Chinese sight seers that are taking a tourist trip and fly out of gorge and of course gravity.

So my mate, who has the same goal as me runs and attempts to jump the gorge. Unfortunately he really did not put any thought into how the factors affecting his flight path would affect him and he falls into the gorge into the helicopter full of tourists and gets turned into red mist by its whirling blades.

I take sometime to calculate that gravity will immediately impose a 9.51 meter per second per second acceleration the very moment I leave the ground. Quickly doing some math in head I work out cover the 20 meter distance I will need a ramp at 15.8 degrees of slope and a velocity 10.7 m/s. This will mean I cover some 32.9m not taking the wind into account. I can tell from dropping a blade of grass the wind speed is less than 30kmph and will exert a maximum negative force vector impact of 5m jump distance. This will mean I have 7.9m of spare distance in case some other vector I have missed affects the jump attempt.

So having assessed the situation I buy/invest in a motorcycle from the harley dealer that happens to have a shop on my side of the gorge. I fire up the bike and due a test run to 40 kmph and all seems fine. I know I only have to reach 38.52 but decide to err on the side of caution.

Penelope has heard the noise from the bike and is watching with great glee enticing me to I start my approach. She is jumping up and down in anticipation of the spectacle. I see this jumping in slow motion as I am concentrating on the factors doing a mental check list before I commit. I have forgotten about the pesky helicopter. I quick glance down into the gorge and it is nowhere to be seen.

So everything accounted for I start my run, hit the ramp at exactly 40kmph and let physics do the rest. A short moment later I land successfully on the other side and soon am achieving my goal with the of course impressed Miss Cruze.

So yes there is risk in absolutely everything. Entrepreneurs, well at least the good ones, identify and manage the risk.

Sorry for the long email but I have to go now. Penelope is calling me.

Umm, i haven't confused anything with anything.
I thought i had been extremely clear about the point i have been making but appears i was wrong.

So, for the record, without the need for strange, long winded posts about Penelope Cruz,gorges and you on a motorbike, i will repeat my point.

There never has been and there never will be a risk free start up business or venture. Something you seemed to confirm on page 4001 of your novel.

 

[oldmanriver]

And an entrepreneur needs to run 3 or 4 websites and make 100s of thousands

Really? Why websites and why those figures?

 

[lyndonio]

Using tesco as an example is silly!

they could start selling air in bottles and it would sell.

Anybody that claims to be an entrepreneur should be ignored. Tune in to bbc 1 tonight at 9pm. How many of them would call them selves entrepreneurs?

nearly all of them I'm guessing but are they no probably not even 1 of them are entrepreneurs.

An entrepreneur is not someone that is making a few quid and is running 3 or 4 different websites. He is somebody (and they usually are he's) that is turning over hundreds of thousands of pounds profit and is continually moving into different markets and overtaking the competetion.

those figures old man...

 

[hmmm]

logic...........
but then again REAL entrepreneurs have this so i take that back

 

[oldmanriver]

those figures old man...

Ok, shouldn't have asked.

 

[lyndonio]

are yo joking???
I was saying dynamics post is wrong and that no figures are correct maybe read properly old man....

 

[hmmm]

are yo joking???
I was saying dynamics post is wrong and that no figures are correct maybe read properly old man....

*giggles*
ha ......

 

[Mustaka]

There never has been and there never will be a risk free start up business or venture. Something you seemed to confirm on page 4001 of your novel.

Of course there is risk in everything. You may break your finger typing out your business plan because you were mashing the zero key hard whilst typing in year 3 projected net profit. And whilst screaming in agony your cat jumps up onto your desk and knocks over your scolding hot coffee into your lap burning your swingers which causes you to jump up striking your knee on the corner gas radiator knocking the gas input pipe loose. Moments later the gas ignites from the sparks from your keyboard as some of the coffee dripped in there shorting it out. The ensuing explosion rips your office loft conversion apart blowing you outside where you land impaled on a rusty iron fence. With your entrails spilled the last thing you see before going to the entrepreneurs convention in heaven (or hell) is a pink fluffy poodle sedately lapping at a steaming pool of your blood.

The lesson here is don't be a bonehead and put unrealistic profit projections into your business plan. Will only hurt you in the end, or in this case sooner because risk was not accounted for.

I use the IADA loop. Information, analysis, decision, action.

So applied to this scenario the risk of breaking a finger is mashing the keyboard to hard. Analysis is "If I don't mash the keyboard like a bonehead it is highly unlikely I am going to break my finger." Decision is not to mash the the zero key. Action is to type in 150,000,000,000 net profit normally.

And there you have it. Risk averted.

What people are saying to you is not the black and white perception that risk is not present, but there are situations where the circumstances presented to a start-up or entrepreneur are mitigated to an extent as to be non-influential in the decision process.

 

[Bobb1979]

hahaha, blo ddy hilarious! Just what i needed after a hard day at the office , made me laugh!

 

[thebizmentor]

What people are saying to you is not the black and white perception that risk is not present, but there are situations where the circumstances presented to a start-up or entrepreneur are mitigated to an extent as to be non-influential in the decision process.

But it's not zero. It has to be zero....

As the keyboard anecdote demonstrates wonderfully there is no such thing as zero risk in anything in life let alone business. Eliminating risk is a process and not an absolute.

Shall we settle on non-influential. I like that description.

 

[oldmanriver]

Of course there is risk in everything. You may break your finger typing out your business plan because you were mashing the zero key hard whilst typing in year 3 projected net profit. And whilst screaming in agony your cat jumps up onto your desk and knocks over your scolding hot coffee into your lap burning your swingers which causes you to jump up striking your knee on the corner gas radiator knocking the gas input pipe loose. Moments later the gas ignites from the sparks from your keyboard as some of the coffee dripped in there shorting it out. The ensuing explosion rips your office loft conversion apart blowing you outside where you land impaled on a rusty iron fence. With your entrails spilled the last thing you see before going to the entrepreneurs convention in heaven (or hell) is a pink fluffy poodle sedately lapping at a steaming pool of your blood.

The lesson here is don't be a bonehead and put unrealistic profit projections into your business plan. Will only hurt you in the end, or in this case sooner because risk was not accounted for.

I use the IADA loop. Information, analysis, decision, action.

So applied to this scenario the risk of breaking a finger is mashing the keyboard to hard. Analysis is "If I don't mash the keyboard like a bonehead it is highly unlikely I am going to break my finger." Decision is not to mash the the zero key. Action is to type in 150,000,000,000 net profit normally.

And there you have it. Risk averted.

What people are saying to you is not the black and white perception that risk is not present, but there are situations where the circumstances presented to a start-up or entrepreneur are mitigated to an extent as to be non-influential in the decision process.

You are, again, spectacularly missing my point and why i am making it and to whom.