In my previous post, I talked about the second most read and most searched for topic on naijapreneur: branding. In this post, I will be talking about the first most read and most searched for topic on naijapreneur: business failure.
Repeatedly, from studying the naijapreneur’s Google analytics, the most recurring search engine terms or phrases that bring in the most traffic from search engines to the site is related to business failure, entrepreneurship failure, why entrepreneurs fail, causes of business failure, signs of business failure and many more.
I never knew this fact until I started this blog. It turns out that the greatest fear of an entrepreneur is the fear of failure. Entrepreneurs fear that what they’ve built is going to look lame to others. They fear that all the countless hours they’ve spent working on a project won’t pay off. They fear that it’s time to go back to the drawing board, yet again!
In this unusual article, I want to take a deeper look into some of these entrepreneurial fears and offer some useful ideas on how to deal with them.
Nine common fears faced by entrepreneurs
If you’ve been an entrepreneur for some time now or aspiring to be one anytime soon, then you will be familiar with the following common entrepreneurial fears:
Fear of starting:
The first obvious fear of an entrepreneur is the fear of starting. You’ve got a great business idea, you’ve discussed with a couple of people and they think it’s viable, you’ve done some form of market research and you can see some market potentials, and now it’s time to start.
But you find yourself delaying, procrastinating, and over analyzing. Rather than actually starting your business, you are still stuck planning your business. This is the first fear that every entrepreneur faces; it’s the fear of starting.
The whole business idea is so cool on paper that you become so afraid it will be different when launched in reality. You are afraid things won’t go according to plan. You are afraid this is too good to be true. You are afraid something might go wrong. And trust me; it certainly will be a whole lot different in reality. So, yes, your fear of starting is a valid fear. It is real.
Fear of the unknown:
Another common fear that entrepreneurs face is the fear of the unknown. As an entrepreneur one thing that is guaranteed on this unusual journey is that nothing is guaranteed. On this path, there are no guarantees; nothing is certain!
This is the most disturbing fear of being an entrepreneur and even successful entrepreneurs still nurture this fear. Any business can go up in flames anytime, any day. That you are big or successful doesn’t protect you from this fear; the future is unpredictable.
Your best selling product can suddenly be knocked out of the market by a competition. Your most profitable client can run out of business or switch to another seller. A disruptive technology can wipe out your entire business model. And the scariest of all fears of the unknown is an economic depression or a natural disaster.
In business as well as in life, the only constant thing is change and this change can either be positive or negative. The disturbing truth is that no one is guaranteed of the kind of change that lies in stock for them in the nearest future. So again, this fear is a very valid one. So it’s okay to be afraid of the future. Why? Because it’s unknown!
Financial fear:
One of the challenges of starting and running a business is funding. To tackle this problem, entrepreneurs seek funds from several sources; some internal from family and friends and others external from investors and banks. These borrowed funds can be very scary for entrepreneurs especially when you find out that the ones you had previously borrowed are still unpaid.
Another financial fear peculiar to entrepreneurs is the fear of not paying bills. This is especially peculiar to entrepreneurs who have lefy the corporate world to be their own bosses. Having left the comfort of regular paychecks, the reality of not having enough money to cover living expenses and also business expenses can be a paralyzing.
Again, these two financial fears are very valid. It’s ok to be afraid of the debts that are hanging over your head and it’s totally human to be scared of being broke!
Business partner fear:
At some point in your entrepreneurial journey, if not at the early stage, you will need to get other people on board. For most startup entrepreneurs, the first person to get on board is a business partner or a co-founder as it’s popularly called. This brings us to another kind of fear that entrepreneurs face; the fear of choosing the wrong business partner or co-founder.
A business partner or co-founder can make or break your business. Choosing the wrong partner can put a limit on the progress of your business and choosing the right partner can boost your business to unlimited heights. So yes, it’s not out of place to have this fear.
Fear of being your own boss:
For first-time entrepreneurs just out of the corporate world who have been used to working in a structured environment, the first fear they experience as entrepreneurs is the fear of being their own boss. You’ve been used to following a script created by your boss, now it’s your turn to create the scripts and this alone can be very scary especially for first time entrepreneurs.
According to psychologist, Dr. Colleen Long: "Working for yourself is both the best and worst part of being an entrepreneur. No one’s going to tell you what to do. The days can pass you by and you haven’t really done anything because there’s no one giving you the framework for what to do."
Fear of too much workload:
Contrary to what many people think, entrepreneurs don’t have less workload than employees. As a matter of fact they have greater workloads. And this can be very scary to those switching from the corporate world.
On this unusual journey, there are no nine-to-fives; you have a 24/7 working schedule. As most entrepreneurs would attest to, you even work in your sleep. So yes, when you think about the workload, it’s totally healthy to be afraid. Why? Because entrepreneurship is very demanding. It’s not for the lazy bones!
Fear of boredom:
If you think that it’s only overload that can scare you as an entrepreneur, how about boredom? This is one of the fears associated with running your business on a day-to-day basis. It gets to a certain point where there’s nothing exciting about your business and boredom starts to set in. You start to lose the initial passion and drive that you had in the early days of the business. Everything begins to seem like a routine.
Oh yes, this can be very scary. And the people most susceptible to this fear are serial entrepreneurs who enjoy starting up businesses, rather than running businesses. It’s the adrenaline rush of the startup phase that interests them, rather than the structured processes of running a business.
If you feel this fear, this is a good indication that you should get a complementary partner or manager early on in the business who can continue when you run out of steam. Another indication of this fear is the fact that you should be sincere with yourself; do you really have passion for the business you are about to start? Or the business you are currently in? You can only get bored of something you don’t love doing. So watch it!
Fear of failing:
Now to the biggest of them all, the fear of outright failure. All of the fears outlined above are, one way or the other, summed up in this one fear alone. The statistics of the number of businesses that fail yearly are truly terrifying. This is one of the reasons I get so much search traffic on this topic because people are searching for answers on how to become the few who make it through without failing.
Fear of success:
I left this point to the last because it’s one entrepreneurial fear that many entrepreneurs rarely talk about. Besides failure, another fear they nurse is the fear of success; what if we become so successful that everything begins to fall apart because of our inability to meet?
Success can kill, as well as failure. Becoming too big too fast is one sign of success destroying your business. So yes, it’s not just failure you should be afraid of; you should equally be afraid of succeeding too!
Conclusion
All the entrepreneurial fears outlined above are valid, so it’s ok for you to have one or more of them as you embark on your unusual journey of entrepreneurship. What is not normal is continuing with these fears without looking for ways of coping with them.
