Entrepreneurship isn’t just a job, it’s a lifestyle and you must be prepared to let it become a lifestyle otherwise, entrepreneurship isn’t for you. I’m not trying to talk you out of becoming an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is, and should be, an exciting and rewarding endeavor for anyone who chooses to pursue it.

Instead, my intention is to help a new generation of self-starters prepare for the sometimes harsh realities of business ownership so they can understand better the obstacles ahead of them and realistically prepare for the journey.

Africa has a large startup ecosystem. Everyone desires to become an entrepreneur. However, only 40% of the dreamers get to start, but not more than 20% survive. 80% of startups and businesses will fail within the first three years of getting started. In fact, 9 out of every 10 startups failed.

I’m sure many of us know a lot of people that started business few years ago and the business is no longer existing today. In fact, many big companies we used to have around 20 years ago are no longer around today. I’m sure we can remember Dr. Pepper soft drink, Krest, ST Soap, Multilinks, Visafone, Bank PHB, and Intercontinental Bank. Where is Olx and Konga today? These are not just small companies; they were companies that employed a lot of people. This is to tell you how delicate the business environment is. Now talk less of small businesses. I am sure there are some of your friends that used to have businesses two, three years ago, but today the businesses are gone.

Why do startups fail? Most people only pay attention to the final product of a successful entrepreneur. What most of the people don’t see is what they’ve overcome and went through to reach there. All the struggles, betrayals, rumors, criticisms, free jobs, empty accounts and lonely nights trying to make their vision a reality. Don’t be fooled. Entrepreneurship is not as glamorous as the media and few people have made it out to be. The entrepreneurial journey is guaranteed to be a long, winding journey full of ups and downs.

1. Not the way you think
Entrepreneurs have amazing ideas and are ready to jump in and create things, we tend to fight an uphill battle. Society doesn’t train you to go out on your own and build something from nothing, so you have to figure it out yourself. And anyone who has tried to do that themselves know it is no easy. It can be a monster challenge to get ahead in your business or even to get it off the ground in the first place.

When you’re thinking about taking the plunge and becoming an entrepreneur, for the first few weeks and months of your entrepreneurial journey, the prospect of being your own boss and investing in your enterprise is exhilarating. You read stories about overnight successes and other business leaders finally feeling fulfilled in their work and think that you’ll experience the same level of success or fulfillment as soon as you get started. I’m sorry to break your heart.

Your business plan might carefully detail out every step you envision for the first few years of your company, but no matter how much research you’ve done, you won’t be able to predict everything. That’s Murphy’s Law. Even the things you can predict won’t happen exactly how you envisioned. As an entrepreneur, you’ll be forced to adapt, sometimes in ways you don’t want to adapt. You may feel depressed and discouraged about your progress, or fearful that you won’t make profit in a reasonable amount of time.

While these positive and exciting elements of entrepreneurship are certainly true and make the job worthwhile, you’ll have to remember there’s also a dark side to entrepreneurship. Don’t be too optimistic. Sometimes, you prepare for the worse. Entrepreneurship isn’t all fun and games, and those “overnight successes” are almost invariably the product of exhausting behind-the-scenes work and years of practice and failure.

2. No Vacation! No Break!
You will be working into the early hours of the morning; you will get cranky when things don’t go to plan. Ask any entrepreneur. We don’t measure time in weeks or months, but from deadlines to deadlines, launch to launch and failure to failure.

3. Workaholic Tendencies
We often fail to acknowledge that entrepreneurship is a lonesome job. As a CEO of your own business, you’ll wear many hats (maybe initially). You’ll do some of the work you love and don’t love to do. You’ll be an administrator, a supervisor, a technician, an HR manager and a marketer all at the same time. No matter how excited you are to take on these responsibilities at the beginning of your time as an entrepreneur, this constant gear shifting will inevitably wear you down.

People who are afraid to work hard just aren’t going to make it as entrepreneurs. It takes a lot of time, energy and dedication to get going and take those first steps. Sometimes, these responsibilities can lead to burn out.

4. No Initial Returns
Yes, we’ve heard lots of stories of people going to the wire of spending their last penny, or putting everything they have into the one last hoorah and it works and all of those success stories. Well, it doesn’t always end like that and when it doesn’t, you need to be prepared mentally.

Raising capital for your business is tough, and usually serves as a financial eye-opener to hopeful young entrepreneurs who think business ownership leads to quick profits. This is the motive behind most crypto traders nowadays. Quick effortless profits.

The truth is, for most businesses, the first few years of operations are spent getting your infrastructure up and running. You’ll spend more than you’ll generate in revenue. You’ll have to rely on your personal savings or reserves for basic living expenses and hope things pan out in the future. Friends will tag you a millionaire, but deep inside, only you know and feel the itches.

It’s soul destroying to put all of your time, resources and energy into something that doesn’t work out how you imagined. However, with every failure, you are adding layers to your mental strength.

5. Your social life will diminish
We often see pictures of entrepreneurs all drinking in bars with each other, laughing, joking and having a good time. Yes, this is true, for those entrepreneurs that have built a company and successfully integrated a structure and team that allows them to free up their time.

Starting out though, a combination of lack of funds, long working hours and constant uncertainness of success will mean that you cut back on a trip to the pub with friends and shopping trips.

During my 22nd birthday last year October, I had enough money to turn up with friends. But I also had a pressing need to register my company with the Corporate Affairs Commission. It was simple. I just had to endure the shame for just 24 hours. If I had consented to the pressure, I’d end up shooting myself just ‘cos I want to prove to them that I am… I proceeded to register my business. And that has given me a hedge. This year, I had no pressing budget. Of course, I turned up with friends even without spending a dime. Be prepared to have friends moan at you and make you question yourself. In fact, they’ll call you names. Nevertheless, nobody can see the vision bigger than you do.

6. You’ll make decisions that may hurt you
As an entrepreneur, you’ll serve as the primary decision-maker for your company and you’ll have to make hard, stress-inducing decisions throughout your tenure. Some of those decisions will stick with you, even if you make the logically correct one. You’ll have to change the company’s direction. You’ll have to part ways with partners. You’ll have to fire people irrespective of how intimate they may be to you. These decisions are not easy, but must be made, and they will haunt you.

7. Not primarily for money
An entrepreneur who is money driven will soon go out of business. Entrepreneurs are problem solvers. If you’re not solving any problem, then you don’t qualify for any monetary compensation. Seek to solve problem and create value, money will chase you in the long run.

Google is solving a problem for knowledge seekers. Eventbrite is solving a problem of event ticket purchase. Shoprite is solving a problem of quality and cheap domestic items. Network providers are solving the problem of communication. Kingsley Ndimele is solving a problem for aspiring entrepreneurs. Find a problem you care about and start solving it. Jeff Goins gave a beautiful definition in his book, The Art of Work. He wrote, “Find what you love and what the world needs, then combine them.”

8.Not for title seekers
I’ve observed that this generation of entrepreneurs love titles. An ordinary admin of a WhatsApp group now bears the title of a CEO. Interestingly, entrepreneurship is not for title seekers. In fact, CEO is the most deceptive title in the world. It masks the responsibilities and realities of an entrepreneur. Don’t fall for it.

9. Countless Nos
Great famous comedians and highly paid actors and actresses were severally booed off stage and were rejected in several auditions. The author of The Help, which has sold over ten million copies and was turned into a movie, spent five years writing the novel and was eventually rejected by 60 literary agents. Even the famous Harry Potter script by J.K Rowling was rejected by all 12 major publishers. Rowling persisted and a year later, a small publisher gave her a tiny advance of £1500 and published just 1000 copies of her book. Today, Rowling has sold more than 400 million copies of her book. Far too often in life, we ask a question once, get a half straight answer, assume that meant No! We go home and pout about it, and then never follow up.

Colonel Saunders, the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), at age 65, he was a military retiree and had nothing to his name, except his mother’s chicken recipe. So what did he do? He took his old sports wagon out and began driving to restaurant after restaurant in the United States for two years, knocking on doors, sleeping in his car and wearing his white suit. His intention was to sell the chicken recipe, but he was turned down 1009 times before he received his first yes. How successful is KFC today? At age 90, in 1964, Sanders sold KFC to a group of investors for $2 million ($15.3 million today).

Doors will be slammed on our faces and phones will be hung on us. Never take “No!” for an answer because “No!” does not mean “Never!”

10. Not a means of survival
When you look at your business primarily as a means of survival, you have cut short your business growth. You must have a long term focus. As a startup, eating with all your ten fingers is the fastest way to kill your business.

11. Not an alternative for a failed life
Each time I see persons who venture into entrepreneurship because they’ve failed in school, politics, ministry or other professions, I see a business that will fade soon. It takes more than what you think to become an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is supposed to have at least little knowledge about various fields. Entrepreneurship entails you knowing about leadership, marketing, government, law, accounting, tax, psychology, technology…. you name it. Hence, if you rush into business as an alternative for a failed life, there’s a high chance that you’ll rush out of business ‘cos you’ll be shocked at the overwhelming demand of being an entrepreneur.

I leave you with this: Whenever you see any successful business, always remember that a courageous decision has been made and a sacrificial price has been paid. There’s no making of a star without a scar.

One Last Thing…
Dear Reader, If you find this article helpful, insightful and inspiring, you can post your amazing comments via kingsleyndimele95@gmail.com.You can also share as a gift with your friends, families and loved ones. More so, the author of this article is very passionate about teaching, training and most especially sharing his insights and experiences with youths and aspiring entrepreneurs all over the world. He is open to invitations to speak in your next event – large and small groups, workshops, seminars, conferences, youth meetings and campus gatherings.

My book is available for free download here http://www.novelnigeria.com/2018/10/rituals-written-by-kingsley-ndimele.html

Thanks for reading…