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Why Young Entrepreneurs Fail
Are you young and enterprising? Get ready to crash and burn.
Every entrepreneur will fail at some point, says start-up investor Alex Taussig. But those under 30 tend to fail in ways that are “wholly unnecessary,” he writes in Fortune, ratting off a list of “15 mistakes young entrepreneurs make but don’t have to.”
Among the youthful foibles: being trapped in the “college bubble,” paying for things that could be free, making up stuff instead of saying “I don’t know,” and not telling a good story.
Here’s 11 more:
#14: You have no prototype. Or you do, but your users are irrelevant.
#13: You didn’t research the competition.
#12: You haven’t talked to customers.
#11: Your customer acquisition strategy is not repeatable.
#9: You didn’t practice your pitch.
#7: You know nothing about the investors across the table.
#5: You seek confirming, not disconfirming evidence.
#4: You pick advisors who are easily accessible, not particularly relevant.
#3: You hire for short-term needs, not long-term fit.
#2: You treat fundraising like an end, not a means.
#1: You do more than one business plan competition.
Photo by mjamesno.
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SYOBO Works on January 6th, 2011 4:58 pm
The main reason why young entrepreneurs fail is because of a lack of maturity. It’s an obvious reason and so is the solution to it. Young entrepreneurs need mentoring.
But as obvious as this solution may be, it is neither easy nor cheap to secure mentorship, except by the youth who is humble. Knowledge puffs up and college fills many young people with useless knowledge, which produces some of the worse kind of puffery there is.
For the young person who knows his limitations, however, there is hope of finding wise counsel, provided he knows where to look. Start with those nearest to your camp who have demonstrated a trademark of success: customer appreciation.
Anyone who knows how to satisfy a customer can mentor a young entrepreneur in the first steps of entrepreneurship. Starting your own business is within anyone’s reach, when the objective is appropriately serving the needs of a customer guided by the proven advice of someone who has succeeded at that task for much longer than you.
dan on January 8th, 2011 1:33 pm
Good adivce.
I would also suggest that people study their niche and do some consumer research before creating their business plan. This is needed so they can get a clearer view of what they want to achieve in their business.
Thanks.
http://www.byb.me
Jen Green on January 10th, 2011 10:12 am
Wow, that’s really putting it all out there isn’t it. I would say another thing would be a lack of real-world experience. It’s definitely one thing to come up with an idea and analyze it on paper, but once you’re out there making it happen, you need to be able to read situations and improvise accordingly and that can only happen through experience. Are we saying that all failures are bad? Cannot “lessons learned” be good in the long run?
Kurt Gerwitz on January 12th, 2011 11:18 am
For all of you young entrepreneurs out there…
Tulane is making a difference. Our business plan competition emphasizes Conscious Capitalism and offers a no-strings-attached cash prize of $50,000 for the winning plan. A six page summary is due January 23rd. Details and entry can be found at TulaneBusinessPlanCompetition.com
GiveOpp on January 12th, 2011 2:53 pm
These mistakes are all related to not making mistakes in the past. An entrepreneur learns on his/her feet and will make tons of mistakes early on. The key is to learn from those mistakes next time around get that much closer to your goal. It is unrealistic to think entrepreneurs should always model some one else. How are they going to change the world? By doing things differently and making tons of mistakes.
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