In the current age of start-ups, a lot of us want to start our own venture. However, it’s not an overnight task and you need to have certain characteristics. So what are these? what are the ways to become a successful entrepreneur?

There are too many articles on what to do to become a successful entrepreneur. In this article, we will talk about what to avoid in order to become a successful entrepreneur. Let’s start with some assumptions before going ahead.

Assumptions:

1. Before you actually tap any industry, it is assumed that you have a decent idea of the problem that you are going to solve through your product or service.

2. The second assumption is that you know who is your target audience. These are the people to whom you want to cater. They can be categorised as middle-income group, high-income group, or by age, etc.

Now let’s begin with our list of what not to do to become a successful entrepreneur:

1. Don’t start a business without having good reasons of why you want to do it:

This is because you should always know your aim and motivations behind the task you have taken. Once you kickstart your business, there will be days when you may feel lost and want to leave the task at hand but once you have these motivations and reasons written, it will be easier for you to sail through.

2. Don’t start without a plan:

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. You may have a goal, wish and vision but if you don’t have a plan you might be planning your failure.

3. Don’t hesitate to have advisors:

The budding entrepreneurs might think that it’s their business and they have to take all the decisions by themselves. However, the truth is that everyone need advisors and having advisors can save a lot of extra efforts and provide insights from their experiences. So, don’t hesitate to have mentors, friends, or professionals.

4. Don’t step away from being a student again:

You learn the most when you see things from the perspective of a student. While starting a business, research as much as you can about the targeted market, targeted industry and your competition. Be a great student as it’s the key to become a great entrepreneur.

5. Don’t fail to plan about how you want to scale up:

It’s always better to have a clear picture from the beginning about how you are going to scale up your business in future. You should know if you are going to scale up by associating with other companies, or by horizontal or vertical acquisition/merger, etc. It is important because failing to do so might demand for structural changes later in the business. For example, let’s say, you wanted to achieve economies of scale by availing loan but you have already availed so much that now your balance sheet is loaded with it. In this situation, no debtor will be willing to give you more loan. You will also face problems while merging as they might value your firm at lesser rates. So, always plan the stages and try to foresee the business requirements.

6. Don’t try to run away from teams:

Running a business involves many complexities. It needs people from diverse backgrounds. Also, if you have a team, you can always brainstorm new ideas, rely on your teams for any emergency, etc. So don’t run away from having a reliable team. If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you will need your team at place.

7. Don’t run away from uneasy situations:

Fear of embarrassment holds us back from sharing our ideas. If you are easily embarrassed, change yourself first.

A pro tip: ‘Keep moving’- Occupy yourself with work if you felt embarrassed, your brain will focus on the activity at hand and will utilise less energy towards thinking over the embarrassing situation that you just faced.

8. Don’t let quitting be your first choice:

It has been studied and derived that people quit because it instantly ends the pain. However, we fail to recognize while quitting that it’s the moment where long-term suffering begins. Hence, try to develop courage. Constantly remind yourself, “When going gets tough, only tough gets going”.

9. Don’t fail to develop self-discipline:

Self-discipline helps you in managing your day. It optimises the use of energy when you have already planned your day and aligned your goals beforehand. It will help you in overcoming your weaknesses and making you more productive.

10. Don’t be afraid of ambiguity:

There are a lot of things that we can’t foresee. Business decisions are made in an uncertain environment. You might need to take a business decision based on the available information in the market. Don’t be afraid and lose your calm. This quality of remaining calm in uncertainty might take you extra miles in your business.

At last, it’s imperative to say that business runs in an intensively dynamic environment. There are thousands of factors affecting it simultaneously (geographical, economical, political, technological, social, legal, etc). So even if you fail in your first venture, these qualities will go a long way and make you one step closer to being a successful entrepreneur.