Entrepreneurship is a path of constant learning and many startup founders learn the hard way that their expectations have almost nothing to do with the reality.You may think that you are absolutely prepared to launch your startup, but the truth is that you are not. First time entrepreneurs may know a lot, but the true teacher of business is the experience. Here you can find 10 of the most important things that entrepreneurs must know before they launch their first startup.
Execution is everything. No matter how great your idea is if you don’t have clear vision of the way it will be executed, you are most likely to fail at building successful startup.
Build your audience before your product. To create something great you need to know that there are people who need this product. Know your audience and create for them.
Finding good employees is hard… Venture capitalists invest not only in ideas, but in teams as well. In order to create strong company you need to hire skilled people and finding professionals is really, really hard.
…so don’t be afraid to hire people who are better than you. Don’t compromise with your hiring because you are afraid that somebody else will take your place as a leader. You should be happy if you can find better people for your team and try to keep them as long as you can.
Raising money is not easy and don’t happen overnight. You will hear “No!” more than you can actually imagine.
Details are really important and you will learn to pay the right amount of attention to them. You will learn to look at the big picture but never to forget the small parts of it.
Your understanding of success will change… many times. So will your perception of failure. Success comes after many failures and you need to be prepared for both of them. Failure is hard, but success is not easy either.
Stress will be unbearable. You expect that, but nobody is ever ready when it comes to working under so much pressure.
And your personal life may suffer. The clear line between your personal and professional life will get so blurry. Your time will be never enough and there will be always something that needs to be done.
You will think about quitting many times, but you will never actually do it. Natural born entrepreneurs never stop following their passion, no matter what happens and how rocky the way gets.
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