7 Hard-To-Swallow Truths About Entrepreneurship

While entrepreneurship is a path to a better life, there are many harsh truths that come with choosing this career option. It is not an easy route to untold riches and there are several issues that typically arise along the way. Unless you are fully capable of handling them, your dream of being an entrepreneur may die before it even has a chance. Read on to learn more about seven truths about entrepreneurship that are the hardest to swallow:

1. You’re Not As Useful As You Think You Are

When it comes to entrepreneurship, you are only as useful as the last product or service that you provided to your customers. No one is ever as useful as they think they are, no matter how many successes they’ve had in their past. The most important question that consumers ask of those who provide their goods and services: what have you done for me lately?

You must remain focused on the cutting edge and always have a new idea on top. Even the best entrepreneurs need to be coming up with new plans for the future, so that they can remain valuable to their loyal customers.

2. Success Breeds Envy

The more successful you become, the harder people will try to tear you down. There is no handbook for becoming successful and how to deal with it, so be prepared to handle the envy and disloyalty that comes your way. People who were once in your corner may decide to turn against you.

This is not because they don’t like you as a person, it is because they do not like your success. It makes them feel inferior, so as a result, they are forced to tear you down and poke holes in your triumphs. While some people see the success of others as a motivator, the majority of those who are in direct competition with you do not.

3. Personal Relationships Matter

Everyone is going to tell you that personal relationships do not matter and that entrepreneurship is all about who brings the best products to the attention of the consumer. This may be true to a certain extent, but personal relationships are also of extreme importance.

Talent and hard work can only get a person so far, in certain scenarios. An entrepreneur who has connections and combine their talent and hard work with their ability to open doors will usually get much further than someone who does not have any connections and is forced to open these doors by themselves.

4. Money Does Not Solve Every Problem

Entrepreneurship is a field where simply throwing a bunch of money at a problem does not make it go away. If your products aren’t good enough, if you are unable to connect with people, if there is nothing for the consumer to grab onto, there is no amount of money that a person can spend to make those kinds of problems go away.

In order to keep your business functioning, you need a large reserve of cash on hand at all times. If you decide to spend all of your discretionary funds to put out every fire that comes along, you won’t have anything left to deal with the day to day expenses that come with running your own business. A person must get used to solving problems with their brain and not their wallet.

5. Do Or Don’t Do, There’s No Such Thing As “Trying”

To paraphrase Yoda, there is only what you can do what you cannot do. The consumer does not care to hear about your trying or what you might be able to do. Can you deliver on what you’ve promised or not? Everything else is merely window dressing. Unless you can live up the promises you make to your consumers, they will take their business elsewhere.

Without delivering on your promises, all you are is a big talker and no one likes a big talker. Word will get out about your ability to talk the talk and your inability to walk the walk. Once this happens, that is a death knell for your career as an entrepreneur.

6. Investors Don’t Care Unless There Is Money Involved

Your relationships with your investors have nothing to do with the flowery speech that you gave them or the wining/dining you did. The health of your relationship with your investor depends on one factor and one factor only: your ability to continuously make them money. If you start to make more excuses than money, this puts a strain on the relationship.

No one cares about the sad times that happened in your past. Nor will they care to hear about whatever passion project you have or the sob story that led to the loss of their money. When it comes to entrepreneurship, money talks and experienced observers already know what walks.

7. You Are More Likely To Fail

Most entrepreneurship endeavors fail. This is not meant to discourage a potential entrepreneur from trying, this is merely the statistical evidence that is currently available.

Three quarters of all start up businesses end up failing and this is not because of a lack of ideas. It is much harder to make a business work over the long haul that people believe. There are many businesses that did well during their first year, only to crash and burn because the entrepreneurs running them were not prepared for success. The majority of entrepreneurs fail before they ever succeed.

Recommended books on the truths about entrepreneurship:

Lifestyle Entreprenuer by Jesse Krieger
The Entrepreneur Mind by Kevin Johnson
Unstoppable Entrepreneurship by Ilkka Lavas
What’s Next by Michael Price
Everyday Entrepreneurs by Ken Horn

What’s one of the most hard-to-swallow truths about entrepreneurship you’ve encountered? Share your story in the comments below:

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Cody Faldyn

Cody is a blogger, social media specialist, graphic designer, and the Marketing Evangelist behind The Entrepreneurs Library. With a long time passion for personal growth, Cody helped create a website and podcast with the intent to educate aspiring entrepreneurs on the latest and greatest books on business growth and personal development.