Handy Tips to Overcome Fear of Failure When Starting a New Business
If you look at the list of Forbes 100 or 500, or Fortune 100 toppers, you’ll find them all to be businessmen. However, when it comes to starting a new business, everyone feel hesitant mainly due to fear of failure.
They conveniently forget that if all the entrepreneurs chose not to take a risk and start a venture, there wouldn’t be any automobiles, consumer goods, machinery, tools and equipment, and food products that you see around. And most importantly, many people would have remained unemployed.
Here are six tips to overcome fear of failure for start-up
1. Get Started with Your Idea
Many people come up with good business ideas for product or service which look good on paper but they are afraid they may not succeed. A sample survey and talking to potential customers or related people in the industry will help you find out if your solution fills a genuine need. If the answer is yes, you gain the confidence to go ahead.
2. Understand That Failure is a Part of Business
Small and big failures are parts of business. If you look at the history of many entrepreneurs including Richard Branson of Virgin Air, you will find they have faced many failures before attaining success. You will also find that successful business groups have encountered failures when they diversified or launched new products. Failure is not the opposite of success in business but a part of it. Sony’s Betamax, Ford’s Edsel model are all classic failures by established business houses.
3. Don't Worry about Raising Money
You may be worried about raising money. Initially, banks may be reluctant to lend because you don’t have a past record or balance sheet to show. It’s here that friends and relatives may help. If your idea is good, angel investors may be willing to invest but for that, you have to step out and meet them. Accept rejections and keep moving.
4. Do Test Marketing
If you are making a product, don’t go into full production with the hope that every unit will be sold. Try test marketing in selected locations and gauge the response from the shops and customers. There could be glitches that have to be overcome. Be prepared to take back the product, rectify and give a replacement free of cost.
5. Stop Comparisons
Each industry, each product and each businessman may have their own unique path to success. It may have come after an initial failure or success. You need not compare your business with other businesses because each has a different role model and addresses different consumers. But you can find out reasons for their failures and success which can help you strategize better. You need not be born into a business family to attain success in business.
6. Don't be Afraid of not being an Expert
A business requires an understanding of the product or services that you offer but you need not be an expert in it. You could hire the services of experts, either full time or part time. Most businessmen have a team of experts in various departments who are much more qualified and experienced than them. Your strength comes from skilled employees and managers.
Most successful businesses that you find today were either started in a car garage or in a small one room apartment. Most often, what those first time entrepreneurs had was just the enthusiasm and the desire to succeed. Money, resources, people and consumers- all fall in place when the product addresses a need and people come to know about it. You can learn a lot from failures of others and yourself, but if you don’t try, you don’t reach anywhere.
