Top Startup Mistakes To Avoid In 2018

Prabhash Kumar
Webpreneurs Hub
Published in
6 min readMar 26, 2018

Commencing a business is exorbitant. Startups have to deal with a different business decision that is certainly important. A single mistake can lead to loss of money. Well, no one can avoid the problems but one can avoid the Startup mistakes that entrepreneurs committed in the past.

By discussing and analyzing all the major problems that happened in the past is an ideal way to avoid startup mistakes.

There are plenty of questions worrying startup owners. Like-

  • How to build the website and product?
  • Where will customers come?
  • How will the company be funded?

So, undoubtedly starting a business is a challenging work but it can be the most enriching and enthralling adventure of your life. So, build your team and plan your business in the way you dream to be.

Below are 9 things you wish you knew to avoid while initiating a new business.

1] Going Single-handed
This is the topmost startup mistakes committed by several Entrepreneurs. The reality is that an individual can’t do everything alone.

One needs to take the required amount of rest every day to remain healthy and to build a healthy empire. However, in the starting, you need to perform different tasks by yourself but you can also consider appointing a small team to perform simple tasks.

It would help to lighten your pressure and give you more time to focus on some important business activities which are more necessary to your business success.

Also, a small team can help you to achieve a lot. While investing an investors always look for a startup having a team which leads the organization. So, most of the investors may turn down to invest in the startup is lead by a single person.

2] Buying Nonsensical Things

It’s an extravagance to have a big office, a new computer, double monitor setup and much more. These means that you don’t need all these things in the starting itself.

Well, you and your employees can work happily from home, it doesn’t make any sense to sustain the additional and unnecessary cost of buying a new system or renting an office. Be frugal and spend money on activities that will bring profit to your business.

3] Not Conducting Proper Research

Any step you initiate to do without a proper research could focus in a direction opposite to the one you wish to move. Hope can only be achieved if it is backed by relevant data.

Most of the entrepreneurs preoccupied with the thinking that they have a unique business idea and step out without an absolute competitor research. This is one of the important reason why the startups fail.

This Startup mistake is specifically predominant among new entrepreneurs and individuals entering a new market — people who simply experience passionate feelings for their unique idea and can’t perceive how much it’s falling flat. Try not to go on gut.

Analyze and go as per the evidence. Comprehend how your product or service fits in the market.

4] Not negotiating
Newbie entrepreneurs frequently accept the first value that they get for products and goods. Yet, the sooner you find out that everything is negotiable, the more wealth your business will save.

It is good to negotiate on every deal starting from your Internet plan to hiring employees. You can arrange better arrangements on everything from your Internet want to your rental understanding.

You’d be amazed what discounts and deals you can get just by asking it. If a service provider wouldn’t like to offer you a good deal, intimate them you will get service from another provider offering a better deal.

Keep in mind, in this condition you hold the power, as there are many providers willing to negotiate with you.

5] Undertaking your own tax return
It might appear like a smart idea to do your own tax return to save the accountant fee, however, this can frequently wind up costing you more. An expert tax accountant can enable you to get more back in deductions.

Here, you can even claim the cost of their services in the coming year’s return. Also, as they probably are about the workflow, you can stay calm and easy realizing that you’ve fulfills all your legal tax requirements.

As a startup, it’s vital to be thrifty and minimize expenses while you’re gaining energy. In any case, it’s always imperative to know when you should spend more money. Splitting out the things such as quality employee and accountant will cost you more in the coming future.

6] Money Can Buy Anything

Struggling startups companies mostly think that money can solve anything, if they made their financial situation strong all their problems will be solved. However, this is not true always.

It can’t solve the basic problem with a business model. If your business model is not valid and reliable, spending money on business won’t shows any color. Fix the issue first and then think to invest money.

7] Searching for Investors but Not Customers
Most of the startups are not aware of the way to ask for funds and use funds suitably. They always think that they are having a unique idea which will attract the investors obviously and give plenty of money to them.

You would be backfiring if you are worrying more about investors than the customers. This is one of the biggest startup mistake & reason why many startups close down every year.

It doesn’t matter how amazing your service or product idea if you can get a quite good number of customers, the failure is about to happen.

8] Not Having a Growth Plan
As a business owner, you must be aware of customer acquisition, which can finally lead to make or break the business. Most of the startups usually ignore the process of customer acquisition and focus on building product and funding.

However, your basic goal should be to do research based on your market, customers and problems faced by your customers while using your product or service. If people like your product, automatically investors will come to do investment on your business. So, have a proper and effective growth plan.

9] Not Spending Time on Sales
Being a startup, it is quite predictable to say that you are doing most of the thing by your own starting from production to sales.

In the everyday busy schedule, you find yourself focusing more on the development of product but not for marketing or sales. This will make you stand in the same place from where you have started.

Hence, it is also equally important to focus on promotional and sales activities as you do for production. Try your level best to stay ahead of your competitors and achieve the sales target.

True entrepreneurs are always willing to explore new terrain, don’t get stuck in old practices and always remain open to new visions. Try to avoid all the above-mentioned startup mistakes in order to achieve success.

Hence, startup owners need to do their homework properly and make sure to take the correct steps to accomplish their Startup success securely.

Entrepreneurs need to take every step carefully like firewalkers to achieve milestones successfully. Real entrepreneurs always flourish by learning new things.

This will help you to leverage your business and stabilize your business effectively. So, always learn from your failure, have fun while working and at the end, you will definitely enjoy the taste of success.

So, These were the top startup mistakes to avoid in 2018. What do you think about these Mistakes? Have you been committing these common Mistakes yet? It’s time for a change.

Let me know if you want to add any other mistakes which you think would be worth taking a note. Your comments & valuable suggestions would be appreciated.

Originally published at webpreneurshub.com on March 26, 2018.

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Prabhash Kumar
Webpreneurs Hub

I love Blogging & enjoy sharing my professional knowledge & experience with fellow writers & readers. http://webpreneurshub.com