India’s economy is growing tremendously, and major credit for this goes to the Indian startups who are making revolutionary strides all over the globe. In 2019, the Economic Times published an article about the growth in the global incubators and accelerators in India, wherein the Y Combinator is increasing its India intake. Moreover, Techstarts and Entrepreneur First have rolled out programs for India as well.
Added to the international acclaim and support Indian startups receive, the Government of India has launched multiple programs and schemes that small scale industries can leverage from.
That being said, despite getting all the support from multiple organizations, entrepreneurs still face multiple issues throughout their journey. After all, ironically, all problems aren’t always money-related. If not solved, no matter how small, these issues have the power to make or break the entire venture.
In this article, we have identified and listed the top nine challenges that most entrepreneurs face, along with some simple solutions that could help you overcome them and make your business reach new heights of success.
Dealing With The Unknown
It’s a common notion that no business is the same. You may have similar ideas, business plans, and funding, but each entrepreneur faces a unique journey. Hence, preparing for the challenges to come is close to impossible. You never know when there will be a drop in the demand, or when a competitor will release a better product than yours. This is the most common challenge every entrepreneur faces.
While you can’t be pre-prepared for every situation or problem that comes your way, you can study the journey of other entrepreneurs. There are many unique solutions that people have used to tackle a host of issues that can inspire you to come up with an answer to your problem as well. Direct or indirect, there are multiple lessons you can learn by observing the journey of other successful and unsuccessful entrepreneurs.
But first, you have to remember to stay calm. Dealing with the unknown often brings along another serious challenge; anxiety.
Anxiety
Stress and anxiety often lead people to make hasty decisions that aren’t always the best. Running a business isn’t easy. You have to take care of a host of different things, right from finance and running a team to coordinating with clients and sales. This can be overwhelming and lead to stress.
In such situations, you need to remember to stay calm. Yoga and meditation have proven to be useful to many business people as it gives them a few minutes of peace among the chaos. Additionally, you need to maintain a healthy lifestyle; after all, your company cannot bear the risk of you being unwell.
Another factor that adds to anxiety is the fear of failing.
The Fear of Failure
At some point, every entrepreneur faces the fear of failure. It could either creep up in the early stages while setting up the business or during a dry phase years later.
While this fear is inevitable, you need to push through and focus on your vision. In such times, invest your energy to chalk up a new plan on how you can boost your business. Rely on the initial passion that drove you to indulge in this venture and focus on motivating your employees to work harder and believe in the company. Their belief will inspire you to believe again.
Team Building
Every successful company needs a team of skilled, driven and passionate individuals who believe in the company’s mission and vision as much as you do. To build this team and keep them motivated, you need to step in and build this team. However, it’s easier said than done, isn’t it? Finding people who are as invested as you are in the business is not easy. Moreover, finding skilled people who fit your budget is no easy feat either.
In such times, you need to get creative. Find young individuals who have just graduated. Invest some time in training them. Not only will they be skilled, but they will also be loyal to you. Moreover, you need to treat your team with respect and make them feel that they are an integral part of the organization. If you make them feel that the company is theirs, they will give their all in ensuring your company is successful.
Time-Bound Working
Client deadlines, paying out salaries on time, attending meetings, and giving sales pitches, there are so many activities that need you to work with tight deadlines. Missing even one deadline can hamper your brand name or even cause you to lose a client. In such cases, time management becomes crucial. Create a planner and fill it on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. And most importantly, prioritize your work and say no whenever needed.
This brings us to the next challenge that is closely related to time-bound working; donning different hats.
Donning Different Hats
There are so many different tasks that need to take care of as an entrepreneur. You need to work as a salesman, manager, coordinator, and depending on your size, sometimes even as an administrator. From the smallest thing as the net not working to a client escalation, you need to take care of it all. This causes you to lose track of the most important tasks and focus your efforts on less priority work.
To tackle such challenges, you need to learn how to outsource your work. You must build a strong team and outsource the fewer priority tasks so you can focus on the work that requires your attention and skill.
Another reason why you need to outsource your work is to ensure you can maintain a healthy work-life balance.
Work-Life Balance
Due to the amount of work that comes with running a business, you can often lose track of time and end up overworking yourself. Yes, all those late nights, sleeping in the office, missing out important celebrations to get more work done is extremely unhealthy. The challenge is that most entrepreneurs don’t even realize that they are burning themselves out.
To tackle this, you should know how to separate your personal and professional life. Love your business, but don’t let it dominate over your life. Keep specific times when you will work and ensure you adhere to those timelines.
Travel
Be it traveling to a different state or country, or just taking a cab down the road for a client meeting, entrepreneurs often underestimate the cost of traveling. When it eventually comes to maintaining the finances, costs start to mount up for traveling without any budget set aside.
Hence, it’s crucial for you to always set a monthly or yearly budget for business travel and stick to it. Also, only go on a business trip or outing when it’s essential. At the other times, you can make use of modern technology like Skype or Google Hangouts.
Finance Management
Issues in financial management aren’t just limited to travel. A chair in the office broke down, or a new laptop is needed, there is always an unexpected expense while running a business that can completely ruin your budgeting.
Also Read – 10 Unconventional Things To Do To Become A Successful Entrepreneur
In such cases, it’s always recommended to set aside a particular amount of cost in the budget for such expenses. Moreover, before agreeing to spend on every expense, assess how important it is and only then shell out the money.
While these aren’t the only challenges, we have identified these nine as the most common challenges faced by up and coming business people. There’s no guarantee that one solution will fit every business. You need to gauge the situation and then analyze what will work best. Just remember that this is the journey of your life, so ensure you enjoy it!
Also read – List of 15 Successful Indian entrepreneurs
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