Failed entrepreneurs believe that “if you build it, they will come”
They spend too much time on business support and not enough on money-making:
Entrepreneurs often waste valuable time on items related to supporting the business before they’ve figured out their money-making formula. Examples of wasteful business support items include:
- Accounting – Selecting an accounting program to track their financials.
- Design – Choosing a logo for business cards or a Web site.
- Intellectual Property – Figuring out how what parts of your idea can get a copyright, trademark or patent.
While those can be important later on, you shouldn’t sweat supporting a business until you have a business capable of making money. Here are the key money-making topics Kelly says you should dig into before you work on supporting your business:
- Lead generation – What are your sources for new customers?
- Converting leads – How do you convert your leads into first-time customers?
Nail those money-makers first before sweating what your new logo should look like.
They run out of money and time: Most entrepreneurs fail because they run out of money or resources. Even mighty Webvan (with billions of dollars available to it) fell victim to this. They run out of money because they did a poor job at one of these three parts of financial projections:
- You were optimistic on your revenues.
- You underestimated your expenses.
- You mis-projected your balances.
Obtaining cash is one good way to buy time. And if you don’t have cash, make sure you minimize your cash outlays until your money-making is kicking in. A good entrepreneur substantially minimizes cash outlays until the business is off the ground.
They lack strong execution: Entrepreneurs often fail because they execute poorly. This is not surprising since a common characteristic of entrepreneurs is that they are often more creative — which is in part why they come up with great ideas for businesses — than they are organized and detail-oriented.
They start too many things: We know an entrepreneur who has a full-time job (which he dreams of quitting) and has three Web sites running in his limited part time. He’s spreading himself too thin on the three web side-projects — one of them is showing promise (it dominates a niche market and generates $1,000 per month in revenue and growing).
It's not advisable to do such things as it will never ever give you the proper identity .
