The dark side of Entrepreneurship

[Arpit131]

I know enough people who have dreamt of starting a company, but they never took the first step. You need courage, and the mindset of an entrepreneur, to test the waters in the ocean of startups.

Entrepreneurship is not for you if one of the following is true for you.

• Career growth means a greater-than-10% salary hike and a more impressive job title
• Life settlement means owning a house, having a beautiful wife (or rich husband) and two smart kids
• Startups are a hot topic during lunch and weekend parties only, but no one does anything to make them a reality.
• You know how to make quick bucks by fooling people, and you think the same tactic can be applied to a startup
• The value (financial) of one month of your life is not more than one month of your salary, in your opinion

Do you remember the last time you took a risk — something like taking leave for two weeks for vacation without your boss’ approval? Entrepreneurship is about confronting brutal realities of life where you have to take the risk on a daily basis.

• You seek an expert’s help to move forward in an unfamiliar work situation, and are afraid of challenges.
• You don’t try new things because statistics say that the probability of failure is 90%.
• You dream of becoming Steve Jobs but compromise on your ideologies (often because your boss want things another way)
• Last one — you know everything and you don’t like learning from juniors or peers. You only learn from CEOs because that is your primary goal of doing a startup.

Entrepreneurship is for brave hearts

• You have to be mentally strong
• You won’t raise money overnight
• Your co-founders may leave you mid-way
• Your potential investors may ditch you after promising funding.
• Going near cashless becomes routine (be prepared for inconsistent income)

Source

What's your thought about this?
Any entrepreneur here pursuing other businesses also?

 

[deez007]

Spot on mate..... absolutely spot on

 

[enlytend]

People tend to glamourize being an entrepreneur - it's anything but. If it's not how you want to live, no shame in realizing that and taking a different path.

 

[Alvaron]

Being an entrepreneur isn't glamourous by any stretch of the imagination.
It is a constant battle between opportunities, deadlines, HR, PR, expectations and private life.

I have the following businesses/startups I'm working on:

• Beverage wholesaler (to bars/restaurants/small shops), 12 hours/day, 6/7 (our family business)
• Craft beer brewer, 1 day/week about 14 hours
• Software startup as a programmer with 1 other founder , 4 nights/week, about 3 hours/night
• Domaining, mostly inbound and about 12 hours/week searching/buying and putting up auctions
• Web startup with some of my domains. Mostly affilliate and/or blog type, about 10 hours/week

Combining this with wife & 3 kids (7 - 5 - 1.5) and at least 1 outing with friends/2 weeks

But like my grandmother (who made her €200.000/year revenue grocery store into a €25.000.000/year revenue beverage wholesaler where I work now) would say: "Forward is the way to go"

I do get tired sometimes...
Specialy in the two startups... Nothing decent to show yet, no external investors and always on a sharp budget...

 

[PlasticinePorter]

I haven't gotten to the point of investing money in a startup, but I tend to look at everything as an opportunity and to try to learn and sharpen as many skills as I can. I mostly do freelance writing and web design in addition to my day job. I know you can make a business out of anything, whether it is gutter cleaning or cell phone repair or teaching any of your skills. If it is something other people don't want to do themselves or something they want to do, it can become a business.