5 Mistakes to Avoid as an Entrepreneur

3 min readOct 27, 2022

Beginning something new is always exciting, and you usually get lots of advice and opinions, often unsolicited, about what you should do and how exactly you should do it. While checking all the right boxes, we often forget which boxes are absolute no-nos. This list should help.

1. Lack of planning

As the widespread saying goes, hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Failure to oversee the preparation part can be detrimental to a business. Proper planning is not only crucial to help you through the bad times; in fact, a lack of it can leave you flustered when your company starts earning profits quicker than you projected. It is always advisable to spend substantial time on an elaborate plan and then spend some more to ensure it is precise. A clear idea of your company’s goals, mission, and vision will be valuable in the long run.

2. Wrong hiring decisions

Not hiring right can affect your business severely. Hiring as soon as you see a slight surge in workload may not be the best practice. You must ensure a steady workflow for a person before you hire a full-time staff. Going the part-time or contractual hire route can be apt for your firm if your workload changes based on specific seasons. The same goes for recruiting someone based on the cost. When looking for potential employees, merits and skills should be the top priorities.

3. No budget for marketing

For people to buy your product, they must know about it. Skimping on the marketing budget can impact sales significantly. You can set yourself apart from the competition with the correct marketing strategy. Sending the right message to the right people at the right time is crucial for converting users into paying customers. Needless to say, none of this can be done for free. Going to a team of professionals may seem costly in the initial phase, but it will yield results in the long term.

4. Trying to do it all

Spending sleepless nights perfecting your business idea and finally coming up with a strategy to launch it successfully proves that no one else can be more invested in your brainchild than you. You know it best. However, failing to delegate responsibilities can cause the untimely demise of this business. An entrepreneur needs counsel from advisors and mentors to navigate the nooks and crannies of the business world and skilled staff to meet the operational goal of the organization. Trying to do everything yourself is nothing but a recipe for burnout.

5. Not paying attention to the customers

As always, your business should be focused on solving a problem. You can launch a revolutionary product, but if it does not solve a problem the customer is facing, the possibility of success diminishes significantly. Customers must find a product’s use before deciding to use it. Even after understanding the issue and how your product solves it, you cannot forget them. Their feedback and complaints are excellent indicators of areas you need to improve. Failing to implement a customer-first model is often a common mistake that entrepreneurs make.

As you embark on your journey to become a successful entrepreneur, avoiding these mistakes will make the road a lot less bumpy. But even after preparing for the worst, you will probably make many more mistakes, but the best part about that is you will come up with their solutions as well.

Did you make any mistakes like these? Let me know in the comments. And listen to my podcast for more such interesting content.