ENTREPRENEUR SPECIAL .....Taking the plunge: From employee to entrepreneur

Taking the plunge: From employee to entrepreneur

Some people don’t have an entrepreneurial mindset. These are the obvious signs that you’re not ready to start your own company

Despite the entrepreneurial hype of the Silicon Valley era, not everyone is suited to owning a business. There’s no shame if you are happier as an employee, as some people don’t have an entrepreneurial mindset. “Starting and growing a business takes a lot of energy. It’s very risky,” Rani Langer-Croager, the cofounder of Uptima Business Bootcamp, says. Though you can develop entrepreneurial traits, your business would need to be something ‘that you can’t not do’. From issues of risk appetite to matters of personal finance, here are the five signs you might want to keep your day job, at least for now.

You have a low appetite for risk

Here’s the harsh reality of starting a business: around 70 per cent of startups are no longer in business by year 10. Even if your product or service is fantastic, there are a host of snags you can hit, from running out of money to running out of steam. To deal with this risk, every entrepreneur should go into this with his own timeline for when he expects the business to turn a profit — and pay its founder a salary. In other words, figure out how long you can afford to allow your business to grow without getting something back from it, knowing that there’s a chance your startup might never turn a profit.

You have a scarcity mindset

“People who are in a scarcity mindset think there aren’t enough opportunities or resources for them,” Langer-Croager says. This can result in a sense of desperation that can lead you to pursue avenues that hurt your business, rather than holding out for better opportunities. This is a pitfall even for seasoned business owners during down times.

You don’t understand your business numbers

It’s crucial for an entrepreneur to understand his or her business finances. If you’re not keeping tabs on your financials, you could miss important clues that you need to adjust your plan based on actual rather than projected performance. When you’re not doing that backend financial work, it can lead to making emotional decisions as opposed to informed decisions. And that could spell disaster for your startup.

Your bootstraps are too short

“There comes a point where to grow the business, you really need to hire people, so you can delegate activities that are no longer a good use of your time,” Langer-Croager says. Too much bootstrapping (founding and running a company from limited personal capital) can stunt your business growth by denying it resources at a critical time. But a business loan could put you on the hook for the debt you will repay for years if the business fails. The question comes back to this: how much risk are you comfortable with?

You’re not willing to market your idea

You need to be out there and tell the world about your product. If you can’t overcome your fear of being seen, entrepreneurship is probably not your thing.

businessinsider.in

ETP5DEC18