In this super competitive world, there are many challenges that an entrepreneur has to face in his business. In this post, I am listing out these challenges which are delaying the growth of startups.
Challenges to Entrepreneurs
Choosing the Product
Entrepreneurs wants to start an enterprise and most of them are often unsure about the products and services they wish to provide.
Solution: If entrepreneurs are not confident about selecting the product or niche in which they want to provide services, they can delegate this task. You don’t need to hire a huge, expensive marketing firm, recruit a freelance researcher who has experience in the field you’re considering to enter. The fields may beService industry, retail and e-commerce, publishing, etc.). They will conduct market research and create a report with suggested niches, with potential profit margins and a complete SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis.
Capital
Entrepreneurs want to start or grow his business, but he has little capital to do that. Most of the entrepreneurs drop there idea to start a enterprise due to lack of capital or not have much capital.
Solution: Solution for this problem is getting funding or generate funding. There are many ways to get funding from traditional bank loans to family and friends to crowdfunding campaigns. You can choose these routes to start your enterprise, but I prefer the self-fueled growth model in which you fund your own business endeavors.
Hiring of Employees
Entrepreneurs fear job interviews more than the candidates as it is usually very time-consuming. Entrepreneurs need to review resumes, conduct interviews and filter out qualified candidates who are best suited for the job.
Solution: You can use exclusive wanted Ads with all the ultra-specification for assisting you by pre-qualifying the candidates. Just specify what qualifications candidates must have, what the job duties are, what days and hours will their work timing, and what wages and benefits you paid to them. You can save yourself a ton of time by pre-qualifying candidates through exclusive wanted Ads.
Cash Flow Management
Cash flow is the net amount of money being transferred in and out of a business and it is an integral part of all business ventures. However, situations are not rare when entrepreneurs struggle to pay the bills. Delayed payment clearing is a major point of this challenge of entrepreneurs.
Solution: Proper planning and budgeting can assist entrepreneurs in maintaining proper cash flow. However, this cannot save you at all the times. Entrepreneurs can improve their cash flow by demanding advance payment for services and products they provide. Accelerating the invoicing process can also improve the cash flow.
Strapped budget
Even your venture cash flow is fine, it seems that you never have enough money in your budget to market your products and services to its full potential.
Solution: Spend your money where it works and reserve the rest for operating expenses and experimenting with other marketing methods. On initial base, Observe your money, where you’re spending it. Cut down the expenses which you can, this will help you a lot.
Time Management
Time Management is the biggest challenge faced by multi-tasking entrepreneurs who often fall short of time while accomplishing their objective.
Solution: You can solve this problem by creating a list of goals and break down this list into monthly, weekly and even your daily objectives.
Marketing strategy
Most of the entrepreneurs don’t know how to they can market products and services. Some ways for marketing are print, online, mobile, advertising, etc. You want to maximize your ROI (Return on Investment) with efficient, targeted marketing that gives you the best results.
Solution: It’s a good idea to hire a marketing agency for your marketing strategy. Give your budget to marketing agency and tell them to make a plan that efficiently uses that budget for making profits.
Self-doubt
In the beginning, an entrepreneur’s life is not fortunate. It’s extremely easy to get discouraged when you’re not growing as fast as you’d like to. Self-doubt fears, and you feel like you’re giving up.
Solution: If you have a good support system, it will help you alot to overcome. Family and friends who know your goals and support you in difficult situations. You can also create an advisory board of other entrepreneurs who can gives you directions related to your business.
Entrepreneurs face many more challenges too, and there many blogs and books have been written about how to overcome them. Understand that you’re not the first to struggle. There are many resources available, which will help you get back through your darkest days in your entrepreneur life.