Starting a new business can be an exciting adventure full of anxiety, anxiousness, confidence, uncertainties, nervousness, or strong anticipation of success. Entrepreneurship has always existed timelessly, but in these few years, we have seen a significant increase in the rise of entrepreneurs, and this is projected to increase in the coming future. We live in a diverse business environment where the next business idea could come from anywhere whether it is technology, fashion, social media, food, insurance, entertainment, transportation, consultancy, or retail. These are all avenues of business opportunities that exist if the entrepreneur plans and approaches the business development right. The right way in this sense, means doing everything that is required to get the business up and running without absorbing too much exhaustion, too much sunk cost and energy or efforts that added no measurable values.
Starting a business requires capital and for many small businesses, especially disadvantaged, approach business with not enough capital to fund the startup process or better yet, no capital at all. For some startups, getting a business loan could be challenging so they explore other sources of funding such as their paycheck, money from 401K or borrow from family and friends to finance their start-up activities with the hope of recovering those funds when the business starts to grow. But how certain is the business owner of the time it would take for the business to grow and start acquiring revenue? To answer this question, it would be based on the person’s knowledge about the market, competition, position, products, and services as well as their due diligence prior to the startup. In addition to capital, a startup would need a business model.
A new small business could juggle among many business models, especially when they are in the early growth stage, but while faced with this situation also consider that money, energy, time, and resources are being used. This could lead to exhaustion before your first big break. This blog is about “Exhaustion” and how it leads to small startups not moving to the growth stage or in some cases, failing. Most startup businesses fail in their first 1-3 years and some of the reasons they fail are not just due to lack of capital, but wrong business model, insignificant in the market, products or services are poor, and burn out which contributes 5% of the reason businesses fail. When you consider the economic benefits of a small business becoming successful in the community, a 5% failure rate could have an adverse impact especially due to burn out. Even though not all businesses totally fail, some go into dormant state and the owner may lose interest, lack additional support, time and money constraints, venture into other activities, or no confidence in the market anymore. Considering all the steps, hoops, and loops that a small business owner must navigate during a startup process, what is causing the exhaustion or the burn out before startup moves to the next level? How could a startup avoid early exhaustion or burn out by planning right and leveraging their money, energy, time, and resources to obtain a measurable value.
Someone starting a small business may see it as an opportunity to make extra income while some start a business because they want to work for themselves or many other countless reasons a person may involve themselves with entrepreneurship. Sometimes, they plunge themselves into the venture without a good due diligence of the market or industry to understand if the opportunity is feasible and how they could position themselves for better growth. With limited knowledge of the market trends or industry, they would begin to set goals and implement these goals that sometimes do not have a strategic alignment to the overall business goal. Operating without a strategic alignment could cause time, resources, and financial investments to go to waste. If you are a startup or small business just entering a market, you could assume that you are at an disadvantage which means you do not have the operating model and supports that your existing competitors have built over the years, so if you make an attempt to march their efforts as a way to stand out, you could become exhausted or burn out very soon with still having a lot more things to do to get the business up to the growth stage.
Another reason that causes exhaustion or burn out is being mediocre or copying someone else’s business ideas. Some business ideas may come from individual passion and in some cases, the individual may already have the capabilities to provide the products and services their business offers. If you look around you today, there are several businesses selling the same merchandise and a ton of businesses providing the same services. However, each has their own business model that sets them apart from each other and they establish their positions in the marketplace. You could foster the same idea as another person or sell the same products or services as another person, but if the idea is not rooted from within or you are unaware of what it would require – you may not have the same passion, confidence, furthermore capabilities to pull through the startup process which would eventually lead to exhaustion or burn out.
As I stated earlier, not all startups fail totally, some go into dormant state and remain there for a long time. This means, on paper or legally the business is still in existence but not operational. Some people who start a business may already have a steady full-time job with regular income and just want to increase their cash flow. But as it is known, starting and growing a business takes time. It could take anywhere between the time the business started up to 5 years for a small business to start to see real return on investment. In a situation where the business owner has done their market research, opened the business, launched their products or services, carried out a series of marketing campaigns towards promoting their business brand, done all the right things, but the business is not generating revenue that would provide an adequate cash flow. This may cause exhaustion or burn out. Moreover, the owner is still pouring time, energy and resources into the business while working their full-time job – This would also cause exhaustion or burn out. The result of this exhaustion would lead the owner to prioritizing their full-time job to account for the lost or other necessities such family wellbeing, lifestyle, or immediate financial needs. Since the business is not yet bringing in the needed cash flow, more time, energy and resources goes toward the full-time job leaving the business to sit dormant due to exhaustion or burn out.
Many entrepreneurs have failed or lost interest in their business venture due to exhaustion or burn out before they hit the growth stage. If you are thinking about starting a business or already in the process of starting one and you are concerned about how you could pull through the startup process by avoiding early exhaustion – these are few things to consider as you prioritize your business venture.
First and foremost, develop a business idea based on your own passion, confidence, and capabilities.
Do good market research, subscribe to industry articles or blogs, talk to people with experience in the industry to get an understanding of the practicalities involved with running such a business.
Start with a plan – your business plan should include a description of your products or services, a competitor analysis, your target customers, and financial projection.
Have your plan – this is the plan of how your life revolves around the idea of having a business. Consider family, career, school, full-time job, financial responsibilities, and other lifestyle attributes to establish a good balance so you enjoy doing it why you are at it.
Consider Strategic Alignment – this is where you set achievable and realistic goals that have a direct alignment to your overall business goals based on your business plan. Strategic alignment would help avoid money, time, resources, and energy being wasted by fully maximizing to meet your start up goals.
Establish a tool that would measure direct impact or values as you track your business goals, implementations and milestones.
As you have already done your due diligence, consider all your uncertainties and develop a plan to manage or mitigate them as you implement your business goals. Knowing and understanding how these uncertainties impact your business goals, would put you in the right mindset to persevere.
Explore the right opportunities that are cost and time saving. Exploring some business opportunities requires more money, time, and resources, and if the moment is not right to maximize the effect, they may go to waste.
Do your best to acquire any specific skills or knowledge that is needed to enhance your capabilities performing what is required to start and grow the business.
Start small, passively with low expectations and focus on one goal at a time. If possible, get a mentor to help expand on your visions.
Conclusion
Starting a business can be an amazing adventure. The joy and hope of setting oneself up for future success or opening other avenues of income stream can increase confidence. However, there is a downside to it and without knowing or understanding the practicalities involved, some entrepreneurs will soon start to feel the exhaustion and burn out before reaching the growth stage. Being exhausted or burn out means the business owner have pour into the business much of their time, energy, resources, and financial investment without seeing any major impact forward and in some cases, they run out of investment supports causing them to lose ambition, interest, and confidence in the venture. This may cause the business to fail or go into a dormant state. To avoid these circumstances, a business owner must have passion for the business they intend to operate, understanding the market and practicalities of doing such business, identify their uncertainties, evaluate opportunities, establish clear goals, start small and passive and among others utilizing strategic alignment.
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