8 Stressors To Avoid As a New Entrepreneur

Launching and running one’s own business is a dream of many employed people. Entrepreneurial ventures come with many promises from increased autonomy to high financial returns. However, such promises also come with uncertainty and potentially high efforts.

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Starting a business, especially during the first phase before the business picks up can be so overwhelming if as an entrepreneur you don’t structure your business effectively. Most people focus on making money and ignore the stressors that come with entrepreneurship. Are you hoping to start a business soon? Here are some of the stressors.

1. Burn out.

While anyone can suffer from burnout, what makes entrepreneurs particularly vulnerable is the lifestyle they adopt as founders, working for themselves and chasing their own dreams. The long hours, constant desire to prove oneself, sleepless nights, busy mind, challenges of launching a business, and often-negative thoughts that accompany this unique mixture of drive and doubt are the main cause of entrepreneurial burnout.

2. Being overly optimistic.

Formation of expectations is thus a fundamental part of the process when people decide about becoming self-employed. In fact, entrepreneurs are generally more optimistic about their business success than employed managers. New entrepreneurs tend to over-predict the success of their businesses they might underestimate the risk of failing ventures in the future, thus leading to an overestimation of future life satisfaction as a consequence.

3. Poor Cash flow

Cash flow is essential to small business survival, yet many entrepreneurs struggle to pay the bills. Since not every business owner is a finance expert with experience handling money, little or no cash flow will affect any business . For entrepreneurs with new startups, it can be challenging to manage cash flow. No matter how great your business model is, how profitable you are or how many investors are interested in supporting your business, you can’t survive if you can’t manage your company’s cash flow.

The common cash flow problems that new entrepreneurs face are; Engaging in impulse spending during the startup phase, not using cash flow balance, overestimating future sales volume, and allowing slow collection of accounts receivables. One way to improve cash flow is to require a down payment for your products and services.

4. Under-pricing. 

New entrepreneurs have the tendency of setting their prices low to attract new customers, but this can turn into stress once you have made all sales and you have not made any Return on Investment (ROI). While fair and competitive pricing is important, you don’t want to set your rates so low that you inadvertently undervalue your work. Under-pricing creates real problems for early-stage businesses. You can lose potential customers to your competitors by under-pricing, some people will degrade your products from the cheap prices, especially those who feel the most valuable products are that sold at a higher price. Under-pricing will also make your business have a low market ranking and fail to attract customers.

5. Inadequate funding.

Starting a new business is usually challenging especially when you have inadequate funds to invest in the business. Most entrepreneurs start businesses with mostly their own savings. To some extent an entrepreneur is responsible for searching for investors to raise the capital for the business. It is one crucial step to be done and indeed a challenging task for new entrepreneurs and can be very stressful.

6. Missed opportunities.

New businesses enter the market with a lack of knowledge of the latest market trends, it takes time for them to adjust to everything. There is a high possibility to miss out on opportunities, at this time new entrepreneurs are so intensely focused on a particular aspect of the business, such as juggling cash flow or delivering value to clients, that they often miss the most impactful aspects of business growth. Yet, they are right in front of them, this could lead to a loss of relevance and market competitiveness or cause sluggish and stagnant growth.

7. Dealing with the competition.

Competition is another challenge that new entrepreneurs face, when starting their business, when the competition is too tough some people feel like giving up but on the other hand, it is a way to benchmark creativity.

8. Time management.

When you are becoming an entrepreneur, you’ll work harder for yourself than you would ever work for any employer. While self-employment can bring flexibility to your work schedule, building a successful business requires a large investment of your time. It will be important to schedule specific work hours. not meeting your goals as a new entrepreneur can overwhelm you. Setting SMART goals can help you to stay on track, and also identify tasks that can be delegated so that you can focus on the bigger picture.

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Before jumping into entrepreneurship you need to understand that as an amateur in business you need to consider that there are also challenges along the way. First-time entrepreneurs face challenges but also have in mind that you are not alone the earlier you figure out about challenges burnout, being overoptimistic, under-pricing, poor cash flow, inadequate funding, missed opportunities, dealing with competition, and time management exist then you will be able to come up with ways to avoid these challenges. Join our CrystalPerk Kuza Biashara classes to learn how to manoeuvre around the business landscape. We offer training in Entrepreneurship, Leadership and Communication in business to help you grow  your passion into a profitable career.

Nairobi, Kenya.

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