13 Common Entrepreneurial Mistakes Newbies Must Know

Being an entrepreneur, individuals must need to be full of enthusiasm and passion. In fact, the tycoons have to do everything possible in order to make the things move their way. But this does not mean that they always get success, whatever they do. Actually, every entrepreneur’s make some mistakes along the way that will end up costing them.
In reality, little mistakes are the part of life but the thing matter is how entrepreneurs recover from these blunders. Getting back to the business by learning from the mistakes make it stronger. One can learn from the older businesspersons who made some trials and fails at any stage and finally get success. Hence, doing some research and listening to your market in order to understand your niche is crucial.
In this article, 13 members of Young Entrepreneur Council have shared the biggest mistake they made as a newbie. The purpose of sharing these mistakes is that one can save themselves from making the same errors. Below mentioned are a few blunders they said to avoid:

Transcript

1. 13 Common Entrepreneurial Mistakes Newbies Must Know 13 Common Entrepreneurial Mistakes Newbies Must Know
2. Making mistakes as you go into business is a part of every entrepreneur's experience. How you recover from these errors is what matters. The process of getting back on course can make your business stronger, especially if you learn from your mistakes. Getting distracted or disregarding sage advice, for instance, can leave you in a hole, as can not properly preparing for the bumps in the road. You need confidence in order to keep moving forward, while at the same time cannot be so confident that you blind yourself to problems. As a result, doing research and listening to your market, as well as understanding your niche, is crucial. To help you avoid trouble, 13 members of Young Entrepreneur Council, below, shared the biggest mistake they made as a new entrepreneur in hopes that they can save you from making the same error. Here is what they said to avoid:
3. Disregarding Other Business People’s Advice One of the biggest mistakes I've made was minimizing the advice of elder business people because I dismissed it as "outdated" or "irrelevant." Technical knowledge in one’s field is absolutely necessary, and although things may be extremely different today than they were 20-30 years ago, knowledge is knowledge.
4. One of the biggest mistakes I've made as an entrepreneur was spending time on things that were distracting me from moving my business forward. T-shirts and business cards in the early days were fun, but they got me absolutely nowhere closer to finding customers or creating real enterprise value. Focus on what matters: creating products or offering services that people want and actually pay for. Getting Distracted
5. Misallocating Your Funds Raising money is hard. I spent my first round of funding too quickly. I was overconfident that my app was going to take off right away because I was so blindly optimistic. I believed in what I was doing so much, I didn't foresee failure early on. My advice to entrepreneurs is to plan for unexpected bumps in the road, so you are better prepared for the success that lies ahead.
6. Know your business model from the very start. Establish your price and have a crystal-clear understanding of your unit economics: cost of goods, marketing expenses and margins. It's extremely difficult to increase your product prices without losing customers. It can make or break your business. Failing to Truly Understand Your Business
7. Doing It All by Yourself The biggest mistake I have ever made is to think I can do it all by myself. We need to delegate, and when possible, we need to hire professionals in each field to help you succeed.
8. My biggest mistake was not trusting in my abilities sooner. As a Latina female, I was discouraged to pursue my entrepreneurial endeavors by media, bosses, co-workers and at times, even friends. One boss even went so far to say, “You should focus first on having a family.” If you are a female, and especially if you are a minority, you have to cut out the noise and trust that yes, you’ve got this! Letting Others Bring You Down
9. Not Being Prepared For Things To Go Wrong You always have to plan for things to go wrong, because they will! The only thing that stays consistent is your dedication to the end result. But everything else, be prepared for it to go a little — or a lot — differently than expected. Be resilient.
10. Not Trusting Yourself The biggest mistake I ever made as an entrepreneur is not trusting myself earlier on in my career. I wish, desperately, that I started my companies in my early 20s. In the modern world, starting a business and validating an idea is easier than ever, so take advantage of it.
11. Understanding All Aspects of Your Niche When I left investment banking to launch my first startup, the App Store had only launched two years prior. At this time, I had limited, early-stage company experience, and quickly learned that tech development was a completely different world. My company failed because I didn't understand the app dev process. You need to know all aspects of a business, especially those in which you are weak.
12. Taking Criticism Personally A startup feels like a founder's baby. I would take every setback or criticism personally and react poorly. Companies are not babies or people. Most startups die … but from failure comes future success. My advice to a newbie is that they need to strike a balance between their passion and business reality — take criticism and failure in stride, and stay humble.
13. Thinking Your Idea Is Perfect I assumed that my idea and business plan were perfect, and that customers and employees would be banging down my door to work with me. Instead, the market dealt me a big serving of humble pie. I made four major pivots in three years, until we finally got the model and messaging right. The lesson: Be flexible, be open and listen to what the market is telling you.
14. Doing What Looks Good Instead of What Works I cold called and followed up with a company for five months until they gave me an opportunity. The day I presented how my services could benefit them, I blew it. How? Because I didn't prepare as I typically do. When you have a major opportunity, keep doing what put you in that position to begin with. Oh yeah, and never blow a six-figure deal like I did, by doing what looked good, instead of what works.
15. Focusing too Much on Your Team’s Existing Skills In the early years, I focused too heavily on existing skill sets when building our team. This didn't always work out, as some of our early hires had the skills but didn't have "star potential," they were capped out. I now look more for the skills, but even more so for people who have "star potential" and can develop into the leaders of our company, and even take my job one day. This drives scalability.