What are Some Mistakes that New Startup Founders Make It takes time for the market to trust you and your venture, perseverance and innovation are the best qualities for an entrepreneur
By Satanik Roy
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Never start a startup because you think it is cool or will make you a billionaire overnight.
The problem your trying to solve, or do you just want to be a startup founder? Is the first question you need to ask.
Patience is required while building a venture, as most startups start with limited resources, it takes time for the founders to wear every hat. It takes time for selling your service/ product to your first customer. It takes time for the market to know about your offerings, it takes even greater time for the market to trust your venture in buying your offering. Only then comes the scope of scaling, we have seen so many people starting out and shutting down as they could not find a VC after 2 months of ideation.
Having a mindset that the first task of an entrepreneur is to raise funds
I see so many so called "entrepreneurs' prepare a business plan and chase funding without even having registered an actual company. They want somebody else to take all the risk for their idea. Raising money takes time, preparation, a solid business model and a great team behind the business. Stop kidding yourself that you have the next Facebook but need 10 Lakhs before you can start it. Start with what you have, do what you can and then go to raise investment. Investors will respect you far more if you've had the terrible diet and the overdraft account because they will see how passionate and committed you are to the success of the business.
Getting best friends/ family members as Co-Founders
As in a good relationship, a couple compliments each other. Co-Founders in a startup complement each other.Each person comes with his/her individual skillsets. It makes no meaning for a tech startup to have two non-tech founders and outsourcing the technical requirements. Moreover, there will be a lot many times when you disagree with each other do not let your valued relationship as a family member/ partner/ friend affect the growth of your venture. Look for a team that has an aligned vision and can take the startup from 0 to 1.
If you want to make everyone happy be an ice-cream seller
Founders try to be all things to all people. Founders need to understand their target audience and their hopes and dreams. The hopes and dreams of a young woman are vastly different than those of an old man. Who exactly are you trying to sell to? It's a question most founders avoid asking themselves.
Being stubborn about an idea
Founders aren't aggressive enough with experimentation. They have a good idea and they stop looking for a better one. What worked yesterday is not likely to work today any more, so you have to constantly be learning and looking for new angles.
Burying the lead
If you get more than 3 minutes into your presentation and it can not make everyone in the room understand what you are building and why, you've already lost. Pitch in a clear manner and the audience will work with you to let the story make sense. If you don't do this, the listener is left to fall back on the default storyline that is most common and fill the narrative gaps with assumptions to support that narrative.
