That Very First Year As An Entrepreneur

That Very First Year As An Entrepreneur Entrepreneurship requires a lot of passion and patience in order to make the business sustainable in the long run. The very first year of entrepreneurship is very crucial and this is the time when the entrepreneurs let themselves get wet behind the ears & learn several lessons, most of which are through the process of trial and error.

Here are some of the useful lessons learnt the hard way by the new entrepreneurs. Being aware of these learnings would immensely help the other entrepreneurs.

1. Never trust investors on just their verbal promises – There are several investors as well as would-be investors who are just enthusiastic about some start-up area. They will tell you that the idea is a winner and would be happy to promote the project by investing in the same. This verbal appreciation and shallow commitment should never be trusted.

You may end up finding to your dismay that they would never easily part with their funds. They may come up with several excuses which may end up leaving high & dry.

You should never commit the mistake of banking on their promises unless there is a proper legal contract or the money has already been deposited to the bank.

2. You necessarily need to have deeper pockets – As a new entrepreneur, you have either nil or very less experience of managing money. In the jobs that you have done earlier, taxes used to be deducted every month from your salary before you used to get it in

your hand. As an entrepreneur, you will always receive the entire amount and this looks good just till the time you discover that you end up paying out more than what was fairly expected. Whatever be the expenses that you expect to incur, sometimes the real amount is just the double of your expected amount. You will end up paying out from your pocket. Those particular meetings in the coffee shops are sometimes seriously expensive and create a major dent. A Coworking space is lesser expensive and comes with a long list of advantages which provides you with the right value for your money.

Financial Metrics to Help you Run your Small Business 3. Reading the fine print time and again – You need to be very cautious and specific while you read the terms or contract of agreement with the investor. Most of the times there are endless conditions and clauses and you have the possibility of slipping past some conditions while paying proper attention to the fine print. Sometimes a client wants you to get the work started without even a contract. They may state that signing a contract is just a formality. No matter how attractive the assignment is, you should necessarily sign a contract before initiating the work.

4. Stay away from people who continuously haggle over the price – This is obvious that people do not change drastically. If a client or associate is haggling over the commercials, then you should be warned. Your price tag necessarily requires to be lowered at times and you may end up facing loses in the process as well. There is a wide difference between haggling & negotiating. If you are required to extend a discount every time you are required to finalize a deal, then this certainly causes some level of stress. Instead, you should wisely fix up a floor price beyond which you won’t go down.

You should quote a significantly higher price to have sustained the vigorous rounds of negotiations with your clients and associates.

5. Striking a work-life balance – As a new entrepreneur, this is not strange that you would be highly tempted to put in a 16-hour workday, month after month. If you opt to do so, then your personal life would surely go for a toss. You’ll find yourself literally neglecting your near and dear ones and end up paying a big price for this negligence eventually. A Coworking space in Bangalore and other metro cities usually has a community which helps you in maintaining your work-life balance through different proven activities. So, adopting one can be a win-win proposition for you. Just like steel necessarily needs to go through the fire in order to acquire the desired strength, you would also grow stronger by learning from your mistakes. Don’t fret over the mistakes that you have committed in your first year of entrepreneurship. The best way is to learn from your mistakes and move on wisely.

I am sure there are a lot of entrepreneurs reading this post and you must be able to relate your experiences with this. All these challenges can be lesser if as a new entrepreneur, you would

opt to work as a part of a thriving community in a Coworking space. You can get access to many such learnings from the other entrepreneurs who are operating from the same workspace.