[epapop id=’3958′]
People start a business, to change the world. As a rule, they have a brilliant idea, a team of associates, some capital action plan, and another set of stereotypes that represents the life of the entrepreneur. After the first collision with the harsh reality of past hopes and illusions is not a trace remains. We have learned what does not expect entrepreneurs opening their own business.
1. Launching the project – almost a quarter of the way
When you start, it seems that the main challenges will be completed with the launch of the project. Hell stop and start will take more or less normal life. But it was not there. “The launch of the project – about a quarter of the way, –says Yury Lifshits, co-founder of coworking center” Coverage”. – We have come to the point where service or product created is the first customers is a complete operating activities. At the start it seemed that the goal is achieved, it is time to give free rein to rest. In fact – this is only the first stage. Now begins the main work: optimization of processes, active advertising, improving the quality of services, the expansion of business scope, scale. “Unjustified expectations due to the fact that start-up businesses often exaggerate the value of the product, underestimating the complexity and the importance of marketing. “Before customers realize the value of your product, they want to use it and talk about it to your friends, take a long time” – warns Purnima Vidzhayashankar, CEO BizeeBee.
2. It turns out that in the world are not enough people
When you look at the world through the eyes of management, it seems that the interest of vacancies is much less than the decent people. When you become an entrepreneur, the world turns. “Find a responsible, professional employee – a rather trivial task,” – says Gabriel Levy, CEO Dnevnik.ru. In addition, a startup or small company operating in turbulent conditions, to get a good manager is particularly difficult. “Most people want to work for a stable job where the salary is growing, – says Alexander Kim, founder of travel-projects www.sptnik.com and sashatravel.ru. –We do not have a strong culture to take and create something new.”
3. Everything is going according to plan
Starting a business, an entrepreneur, as a rule, has a plan, which he intends to strictly follow. During the first months, it is clear that it can be hung in a frame on the wall for interior decoration – no other use of it. Reality is too unpredictable – important time to regroup and learn to act according to circumstances. “A series of minor and seemingly inefficient accidents could lead to a global solution that would never have occurred to me without these small but very important nuances, – says Max Litmus, the creator of the resource Planeta.ru . – You just do not think that I’m going to the esoteric. But I am increasingly convinced that there are no coincidences. Now I pay attention to every detail, which is regarded as a portal to a parallel reality, and not as a cog in a careful business process mechanism.”
4. Accounting takes half of life
Few people starting a business to deal with accounting. And few who are preparing to the fact that most of the time will take a nasty little different routine, and not the great achievements. “My Web Studio was the first business – tells Vyacheslav Semenchuk, founder of My-Apps.com. – It is an online business, but very quickly we realized that it was not some mythical way of earnings, and the usual variety of classic business, just with a new class of services. It requires the company, accounting, customer communications, document management and other “joys.” All these processes require a lot of time, and, in fact, the very professional work often took less than half of it.”
5. Buy – it is difficult
When you have no money to start difficult. But when they are, life, in fact, too, “no sugar”. Spend them is not easy. “Purchases were much more complex issue than I imagined – admits Yury Lifshits. – The choice of the contractor by the logo or roller takes a long time. Microphones, pumps for toilets, projector, chairs… The first purchases were frequently passing, had to re-allocate budgets and make a second, more informed choices decisions. The desire to save is often counterproductive.”
6. If the goods are sold, it does not mean that you will get the money
Most do not want to bother with the problems of receivables on the way to great achievements. However, defaults and empty account – this is the reality with which the entrepreneur has to face in the very beginning. Soon after picture of the world is changing: it is clear that all must all, no one no one is paying in time: so life works. “Delays in payments for small businesses are critical because there is no financial cushion, – says Vyacheslav Semenchuk. – Creating a small business, you need to be prepared for the non-payment and deception on the part of customers. It should be mentally prepared not to get their “salary” for the current month, as there is no employer, but only you as an entrepreneur. At the start it is very difficult.”
7. A lot of work – is not a panacea
Startups are cultured work wear. It is believed that to make your company, not ditching when this all his life, is simply impossible. But co-founder LessAccounting Allan Branch once realized that this path leads nowhere. “We have worked with my partner more than eighty hours a week instead of the usual forty – he admits. – When we have brought ourselves to the point of combustion, we realized that the work twice longer means to promote your company to twice as fast. Upon additional forty hours it was always not as productive as the first forty. Now, knowing that in the affairs of the business and work is always endless, at four o’clock in the afternoon we turn off their computers and go home to rest.”
By author Maria Gorbacheva