Entrepreneurs face several challenges all the time while establishing a business. Let it be financial, mental, moral, supportive, or personal. They are under constant pressure to build their company into a successful enterprise. While different ones can affect startups and businesses differently, five of them are the most common entrepreneur challenges, and almost everyone faces them.
But worry not. After talking to several business experts, successful entrepreneurs, analyzing multiple surveys, and inspecting many reports, I’ve listed the top 5 challenges you will face during your journey. Plus, I’ve also guided you through the solutions for each one to help you overcome them at your best. So, without further waiting, Let’s Begin!
Challenge #1: Stress
People usually consider entrepreneurship a walk in the park only because they have seen other entrepreneurs gaining success. But once they get into the business and start planning, they get stressed about what to do, how to do it, where to start, etc. Many entrepreneurs don’t have a clear idea or path to follow before beginning.
Even if they get the concept of initiation, the other challenges, like management, finance, monitoring, and others, overwhelm them. It further leads to extra stress, overthinking, and procrastination. By the way, you can read about these startup mistakes in our other guide for a detailed analysis.
Solution
You can overcome entrepreneur challenges by searching for a business in your domain. Choose a business model in an industry you are familiar with. In this way, you will be more confident about the startup and understand the problems better. Field knowledge will also help you in market research, understanding your target audience, planning a roadmap, and surviving the initial steps.
Since multiple people take a back step only because they fear the challenges, they cease the business as they don’t know how to solve the issue. But when you start a business in your domain, you know how to tackle them and convert it into your profit for good.
Challenge #2: Loneliness
If you are going to solve an unseen or overlooked problem in society with unorthodox means, be prepared to get through it solo. Many creative and unique business models don’t get many investors or business partners as they cannot follow the lucrative mindset of the entrepreneur. So, going alone and stranded is among the common entrepreneur challenges that people with non-traditional ideas face.
Besides rejection and let down, loneliness due to financial crisis is also a common issue. Several entrepreneurs couldn’t find a solid investor, and they either had to continue on their own or let the idea go.
We have many examples of solopreneurs who initiated a revolutionary and industry-leading business, but they started low or solo. Some honorable mentions are:
- Howard Schultz: Founder of Starbucks
- Jan Koum: Founder of WhatsApp
- Do Won Chang: Founder of Forever 21
- Ralph Lauren: Creator of the multibillion-dollar enterprise
- Steve Wozniak & Steve Jobs: Apple Founders
- Sam Walton: Walmart Founder (and the list goes on)
Solution
Lack of support is indeed an issue for many entrepreneurs. But the mistake they make is going to every investor they feel to approach to. Finding a community for support can play a tremendous role in motivating the cause. So, just like your audience, research and do homework on your investors too.
Analyze who will be more interested in your model and has a higher chance of funding your initiative. Does their industry match yours, or does their domain deal with the products or services you are targeting? Keep such factors in mind while finding the right partner. It will ultimately find you an investor who will like your idea and help you overcome the initial financial hurdle.
Challenge #3: Instability
Whether the planning time, initial phase, or establishing era, you will constantly find your business on a rollercoaster of happy and difficult days. These ups and downs are among the obvious entrepreneur challenges and the beauty of a business. However, several people find down stages more and start considering the challenges a burden.
As Jessica Herrin (Stella & Dot founder and CEO) describes it:
“You have to see failure as the beginning and the middle, but never entertain it as an end.”
You will find pits and falls many times in your entrepreneurship. The main point is whether it will put your guard down and make you quit, or face it, conquer it, and rise above all.
Solution
Your goal and ambition will be crucial while overcoming the instability of the business. On the one hand, it will keep you motivated to face entrepreneurial obstacles. But on the other hand, it will also prevent you from diverting away from your main objective and remain focused.
Moving on, when you face a problem, take a break and analyze why it is happening. Find out the origins and work on the solutions. For instance, if you are struggling with new leads, focus on marketing. Sometimes you don’t have enough manpower or the right candidate for the right position. Usually, it is monetary issues that require financial restructures. Don’t be demotivated by the shortcomings. Instead, find out how you can solve it.
Challenge #4: Balance
One of the most common entrepreneur challenges is finding the right work-life balance. In fact, it is not only a challenge for entrepreneurs, but almost every business owner goes through the same imbalance, whether he runs a startup or a successful enterprise.
And believe me, it is easy to forget about the me-time under work pressure. According to studies at Grand Canyon University, 53.7% of people felt they sacrificed their off time for work, whereas 46.5% sacrificed their sleep. Moreover, almost 33% of people felt their personal perfectionism is the most significant barrier to this work-life imbalance.
And these stats are from one university’s survey about a small group of people. Now, you can imagine the numbers for all the startups and businesses around the world where the owners as well as workers are going through the same stage.
Solution
Neglecting yourself and ignoring a proper balance will affect you in several ways. First, it will start mentally, physically, and emotionally, which will result in affecting you progressively, financially, professionally, and personally. So, make sure you take out some time for yourself too. Create a timetable, and hold your urge to look at the business during your me-time.
In this modern world, you can also benefit from the technology. Invest in proper time management tools and planners. Find your hobbies and dedicate time to them. You can use the DND (Do Not Disturb) for this purpose rather than for the office to avoid business distractions (unless it is urgent or extremely important).
If you are working on a startup, this is one of your many problems. Read about these problems startup business faces in our other guide. One of our brilliant experts wrote it, where he also mentioned the solutions. So, don’t forget to check that out after completing this one.
Challenge #5: Rejection
‘Sorry, your product doesn’t meet our criteria.’ ‘No, we don’t find your services interesting.’ ‘If you reconsider your entire model, then we may help. Otherwise, we cannot fund this model.’ These are the words from investors and potential business partners that can let down any entrepreneur before they even begin.
When you are finding new partners and investors, be prepared to hear the no. Rejection is common and natural for every business and startup company, and entrepreneurs should be ready. Remember that J.K. Rowling faced rejections from 12 publishers for Harry Potter, and the Squid Games survived it for 10 years. Jeff Bezos raised $1 million for Amazon after sitting in 60 meetings.
Did they stop? No. They knew their idea was irreplaceable. The only thing that matters is following the gut feelings and believing in yourself. But multiple people will break down after such severe rejections and start getting second thoughts about their business model (even if it is revolutionary).
Solution
There’s nothing to do to avoid rejections. No matter how brilliant your idea is, how great is your business model, how perfect your market research is, and how convincing will be your pitch deck. You WILL hear a NO. So, what is the purpose of this solution subheading?
Here, you will need to prepare yourself for the denial. Train your mind to fuel your ambition the more you will face rejection. If you believe the idea is perfect and have no doubts (even after reconsidering several times), stick to your gut feeling. You will find a lead (like them) sooner or later.
It will also be great to get feedback about your idea or model and ask for the causes why they are rejecting it. At this point, you should be open and flexible and try to learn from the criticism, either constructive or negative. It will also help you finetune your model for the next pitch. The question is, how many rejections will it take to break you down? Let me guess. None!
Wrapping Up
Entrepreneurship is not a cup of tea for everyone. Only the most productive, determined, vigilant, optimistic, creative, and open-minded people get through. However, even the best of the best face some inevitable challenges, and their strategies decide whether they will rise victorious or crumble under stress.
Even though you are one of the fighters who don’t give up on your goal easily, you will also face startup stress, loneliness, business instability, work & life balance issues, and rejection. But in the light of our finest experts and leading entrepreneur opinions, you have solutions for all entrepreneur challenges. So, bring it on, face them all, and write a success story.