Mistakes are costly and somebody must pay. The time to correct a mistake is before it is made. The causes of mistakes are, first, I didn’t know; second, I didn’t think; third, I didn’t care.

Henry. H. Buckley

The task of an entrepreneur to start up a business and take it high upon a pedestal of success is no less than taking care of a newly born child. And while undergoing this roller-coaster journey, an entrepreneur has to go through the process of decision taking about her/his business at various stages of growth in order to achieve the desired target.

Every startup begins with a dream. However, few apply proper practical methods to convert it into a reality and end up falling into the clutches of the following two demons:

1. Reluctance and complacent attitude can be detrimental

Any journey is incomplete without bumps. The only thing that is variable is that sometimes the surroundings, the situation creates the bumps and sometimes the people themselves do that. There are practical minded entrepreneurs and then there are the dreamers. The problem takes place when a start up business has reached a desired level of achievement and success and all the people associated with that particular business including the entrepreneur her/himself stop being dynamic and the entire organization becomes stagnant.

What happens is at the initial stage, entrepreneurs try too hard and too fast to take their company to the desired position. And to achieve that, they do not keep any stone unturned. Starting from investing capital, to make contacts, to hire people, to come up with extraordinary products and amazing services and so on! And once the mission of establishing the organization in the business market is done, they just take a back seat. This is the point of time when the startup falls prey to complacency.

The founders become satisfied with what they have achieved and do not feel the urge to take the business to the next level of success. This complacency gets triggered by all sorts of media coverage they get throughout the journey. It is good indeed to get to hear appraisals and good comments about one’s own company but taking those positive reactions as the end notes can be detrimental to the business’s fate. Another consequence that complacency brings along with it is the start ups start believing that they are too perfect to seek any other professional advice from experts. But they do not understand that failing to seek expert advice can enhance the problems that any startup is likely to face after a period of time, especially financial problems. There is no end point to learn something. In fact, experience is one word which is the key to attain long-term success of any startup. An entrepreneur who is a hungry fast-learner is certainly the one to steal away the limelight!

2. Lack of planning leads to poor estimation

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A proper and well-thought business plan is very essential for a startup company to grow tall and steadily. Poor business and lack of ability to foresight many times are the reasons behind the failure of a startup. Not being able to forecast the fate of the company in near future acts as a catalyst in terms of making business mistakes and prevents one from garnering significant achievements. Many startup founders make over-optimistic forecast in the initial stage. The result of which is, the earned cash within a certain period of time starts getting depleted exponentially. The reason is instead of using low-cost sales and marketing methods, the startups opt for the big names with the hope that it would give them a better and bigger platform to launch themselves. Unfortunately this eventually results in draining of money in the process to keep up the high-splashy level. One of the main reasons of this short sightedness can be very poor market research before getting into the battlefield. Having proper knowledge and research about the market, introspecting all factors that finally lead to the viability of the company is very important.  

Ignoring the pros and cons of near future and being content, self-satisfied with whatever achievements have been done till date, result in the death of a startup. The world especially that of the startups which is subjected to constant input of creativity and a lot of technologies, is very dynamic and changes every second. To live in such a world and to grow simultaneously counts for never ending efforts to reach out to the target audience successfully.

An ideal startup company should be one which is the blend of pragmatism and aspirations, which has the ability to outpace the technology (rather than being outpaced by it), which can be done by keeping communication open with the outer world in order to both maintain a healthy relationship with the customers and to stay up-to-date as a strong competitor in the market.

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