Herby Fabius March 11, 2021 I am an interviewer. I spend my days interviewing entrepreneurs and self-published authors. Over the years, I have interviewed over 600 entrepreneurs. I am naturally curious to understand why they started their businesses, what they learned on that journey, and most importantly, what were some of the mistakes they made starting up.
This post is based on the first 100 interviews that I have completed. I asked 100 entrepreneurs to share their top 3 business mistakes and below are their top 3.
Starting Too Late:
This was the number one mistake according to 63 out of the 100 entrepreneurs who participated in the interview. They all say their biggest mistake was not believing in themselves and starting too late. They say it took them an awfully long time to finally take action to pursue their business ideas.
Hiring Mistakes:
This was the second most popular mistake they shared. Either they hired too slow because they were afraid of giving others control of their company, or they waited took too long to fire those who were not a good fit. Almost half of them mention hiring mistakes. It seems, knowing the best time to hire help, or knowing when to let someone go is one of the must-have qualities for a new entrepreneur.
Distraction and Consistency
The third mistake is a split between Distractions and Consistency. A lot of them felt like they could have done a better job staying focus on their work and be more consistent. Some said if they could do it all over again, they would remove all distractions.
More than 15 of them mention having the “Shiny Object Syndrome” which is a term used for when people are easily distracted by things that seem important but really are not. The shiny object syndrome usually involves dealing with their websites. Things like adding more features may seem cool and pretty, but they’re probably not the most important things to work on for the business to survive.
In conclusion
As entrepreneurs, we face decisions every single day. The decisions we make are going to determine where we in years’ time. If you have an idea that you’ve been thinking about, go ahead and take the jump. Hire help, you can’t do it all yourself, and do let go of the people who are not a good fit for your business.
Whatever you do on this journey, always stay focus on the bigger picture. Running a business is like running a marathon, not a sprint. One step at a time consistently – and you’ll eventually get to your destination.
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