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Eight Obstacles To Watch For In The Early Stages Of A Business (And How To Overcome Them) (21175 hits)


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Expert Panel, Young Entrepreneur Council

YEC is an invite-only organization comprised of the world's most successful entrepreneurs 40 and younger.




Starting a new business is always a whirlwind venture. There’s so much to do that organization and communication quickly become critical to continued success. Even if you planned for every outcome, there are bound to be new problems that need your immediate attention. Overcoming these challenges is how an entrepreneur tests his or her mettle.

Luckily, there’s no rule about going into the chaos of a new business blind. In fact, it would behoove new entrepreneurs to take the advice of those who have already made it through and succeeded. To help new entrepreneurs prevail, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council share words of wisdom about early challenges and how to navigate them.


These entrepreneurs share tips for overcoming new-business obstacles.ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF YEC MEMBERS.

1. Be ready to diversify and wear different hats.

When you start a new business, if have done your homework properly, you should have a precise plan. Possibly you are starting full of enthusiasm and are very clear about your role in the company and what your company does. Then you start your business and quickly realize how resilient you have to be, how humble and ready to go beyond your comfort zone infinite times. Be ready to wear different hats and to not be scared to get your hands dirty sometimes, as well as to learn to do things you did not think you were capable of. In this sense, having a business will transform you as a person very deeply. You also have to learn how to delegate. You might end up closing business deals through a new connection or collaborator you did not expect, so be open. - Simonetta Lein, Ausonia Partners



2. Focus on building trust and credibility.

When you're starting out, you have a small body of work to reference for potential new clients. It's harder to establish yourself as the expert or as a wealth of knowledge when you start. For our firm, I used my previous experiences in the corporate world and for huge media companies to help build our own credibility. Now that we've been in business for eight years, we have a large body of work to refer to when pitching new prospects. Even at this phase, we're still venturing into new industries or offering new services where a client can ask us "who else have you done this for?" or "what results can we expect with this service?" We use research and the information advantage to get our foot in the door; then when we have that first successful project, we use it in every future pitch. - Joel Mathew, Fortress Consulting Group

3. Get the right people to build your team.

When we started our company, we never expected how much of a challenge it would be to get not just the right talent, but human capital that understands an early-stage company and contributes visionary angles. Well, guess what? We hit the wall pretty hard! Our expectation from the talent that we interviewed and hired was much higher based on human values and work methodologies, rather than how the work is executed nowadays. Understanding how talent thinks, especially millennials versus my generation, was essential to developing our company and culture as well as retrofitting our hiring process so we could bring on the right team members and start our venture. - Jonnathan Trilleras, Led Truck Media

4. Demonstrate your proof of concept.

The hardest challenge was demonstrating a proof of concept. Everyone's a critic when you’re first starting out, especially when you’re doing something that hasn’t been done before. Getting your first team together, finding your first buyers and getting the concept off the ground while keeping your confidence up can be an uphill battle. Proving to the naysayers and skeptics that your model truly works is the hardest part of that. Demonstrating your proof of concept doesn’t just show that you have a good idea -- it shows that it works. And when you’re disrupting an industry, you’ll have to keep going with people around you insisting your idea won't work. It’s the most challenging part of starting a company, but once you’ve proven your concept, you can move on to getting it out into the world. - Suneera Madhani, Fattmerchant

5. Get a healthy dose of reputation building.

When starting out my firm, I was extremely focused on putting the right processes in place and became completely engulfed with perfecting them. Making sure I had the proper foundation to address standard operating procedures, workflows, compliance and accounting was paramount to achieve my long-term vision of scaling and overall growth. Not that I was wrong in my vision, but I should have also incorporated reputation building right from the very start. Nothing brings in new clients like the positive feedback given from your previous clients. Internet reviews are the new word of mouth in today's digital age. Luckily for me, when I started to focus on getting more reviews I had a great foundation in place, which allowed my firm to provide the kind of service that earned those reviews. - Matthew Podolsky, Florida Law Advisers, P.A.

6. Accept that it doesn't happen as expected.

I had an idea in my head of how our business would grow and the areas in which we would gain most of our clients. But the reality is, business rarely plays out as you would expect it to. We gained clients from industries we did not expect, we were tasked with challenges we never saw coming and we had to adapt on the fly. If I were to lend advice to new entrepreneurs, it would be to be open to anything. You may think you know exactly how things will go for you as your business gets rolling, but once you are in the trenches, you will quickly realize that there are opportunities in areas you never expected. Be open and ready to take advantage of those opportunities. - Zach Binder, Bell + Ivy

7. Focus on defining a brand identity.

When I started my first business over a decade ago, I tried to cater to all industries/company sizes, which led to a growth plateau. Yet, once I defined what my company's target market was, the audience I wanted to service, company strengths, services to offer and overall brand identity, I saw significant growth from that time on. To prevent hitting a growth plateau, define your target audience from the beginning, know what makes your business/brand unique and know how you can deliver more value than your competitors. Once you've done your market research, you'll build a viable brand with an audience that wants what you have to offer. - Kristin Kimberly Marquet, Creative Development Agency, LLC

8. Learn to deal with rejection.

When I started my first company, I was surprised at how many times I heard the word "no" before I finally heard a "yes." No matter how great of an idea you have, if you are truly starting from the ground up (no outside funding) and bootstrapping your company, be prepared for rejection. Lots of it. I thought everyone would have a need for IT services back in 2003 when qualified consultants were scarce. Phone calls, emails, door to door -- it seemed like it was always a "no." Patience and persistence eventually paid off and even though there was still rejection, we were winning often and creating a network of raving fans that began to refer business to us inbound. Don't let your passion be stifled by rejection. - Frank B. Mengert, ebenefit Marketplace (ebm)
Posted By: Max Mahan
Thursday, December 13th 2018 at 5:08PM
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