Many people dream of starting their own business, quitting their jobs and becoming their own boss, while doing something they love and are passionate about.

Starting a business can be very challenging but it’s always worth it in the end.

Unfortunately for most people, their dream of starting their own business only ever remain a dream and is never brought to reality due to obvious challenges that is sometimes beyond their control.

The good news is that there are actually steps you can take to overcome these challenges and finally start your own business.

Being informed beforehand can put you in a better position and save you the stress of having to deal with these challenges without adequate knowledge and guidance.

In this article, you are going to discover some of the biggest challenges of starting a business and ways you can overcome them.

1. Capital

Capital is one of the biggest challenges that many entrepreneurs face when starting a business. Most businesses (if not all) require some level of financial investment during their early stages. Some require large sums of money while others do not require much.

The importance of capital in any business cannot be over emphasized, you need capital to acquire a space for your business, equipment needed for running the business, and even to pay your staffs at the initial stage until the business is able to sustain itself.

Raising capital to start a business is one of the biggest obstacles that prevents entrepreneurs from starting and running a business.

There are quite a few ways you can raise capital and start your business, we are going to look at some of them below:

Find a Partner

One way to get capital to start your business is to find a rich partner who will invest his money into the business and join you in running the business, and in return you will share ownership of the business with him.

Apply for Business Grant

There are many government agencies and international institutions that are giving grants to entrepreneurs with good business ideas and well thought out plan on how to execute the business idea. You just need to know where to look and find them.

It is important to note that grants are not like loans where you have to pay a percentage of interest monthly but rather it is like free money given to you to start your business.

Ask Friends and Family

Your friends and family are people who already know you, they care about you and they want you to succeed. They have a strong connection with you and may not mind giving you their money to start your business even though it’s a risk on their part.

So go ahead and ask your friends and family members, they might be more than willing to help.

2. Getting The Right Team

Many entrepreneurs say their biggest challenge when starting a business is finding the right people to work with. As a startup, finding the right team to work with is crucial to the success and growth of your business.

The problem is some members of the team are not (or may never be) as committed to the success of the business as you are, to most of them it’s just a job or a way to pay their bills and earn a living.

Finding the right people to work with also requires a lot of effort and sometimes it might mean constantly recruiting and firing your staffs until you find the right balance.

Alternatively, you might want to save yourself some time and stress by hiring a Human Resource Professional to do the work of finding the right team members for your business.

3. Acquiring Customers

Without customers, no business can survive. Customers are the bread and butter of every business. Established businesses are leveraging on the trust they’ve already earned to acquire more new customers and they are also doing all they can to maintain their existing customers.

As a startup, it is even more difficult to acquire customers no doubt, given the fact that you have not earned people’s trust yet and you have no track record and established businesses in your niche are not letting their customers go away.

So what can you do to get customers for your business? Well, there are few ways you can overcome this challenge as an entrepreneur:

Give your product or service away for free

Giving your product or service away for free is one of the ways you can gain loyal customers at the initial stage of your business. These customers will use your products, approve of you, tell their friends about you and even become your brand ambassadors.

Sell your product or service away at very cheap prices

You can gain customers by selling your product or service at a lower rate than the market price. Customers who are looking for cheaper solutions will find you and patronize your services and if they are satisfied they will remain your customers.

4. Fear

You have a high paying job, you are doing well at your work place, you are living well, paying your bills is never a problem, and you have a burning passion to start your own business but you are afraid of one thing – the unknown.

You are thinking, you may have to quit your job to focus on the business, what if it doesn’t work, what if the business fails and you now have to back to where you started.

Don’t worry. You are not alone, FEAR is one of the challenges that stop many entrepreneurs from starting their business.

However, there is a way to deal with fear: by simply being prepared for the worst thing that could possibly happen, you will be able to eliminate fear to a great extent.

Also, acquiring business education and better preparing yourself on how to run a business successfully will give you more boldness and confidence to start your business.

Arming yourself with proper business education will prepare you to tackle business challenges as they come.

In Conclusion…

Don’t let anything stop you from achieving your dreams, to achieve success in anything, you must overcome challenges. Most times the challenges we face are not meant to break us but make us stronger and prepare us for the future ahead.

Starting a business has its challenges, but knowing those challenges before hand gives you an advantage over them. So, go ahead and start your business and use the information you’ve gotten from these article to overcome those business challenges. Wishing you all the best.

SOURCE: Accounting Wizards’ Blog

cc: Mynd44, Dominique, Lalasticlala

Do you know any challenges of starting a business? Please feel free to contribute to the topic.

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You forgot plain old laziness!

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