Critical Matters in Entrepreneurship That Almost Nobody Knows

What is something that almost nobody knows about entrepreneurship? Originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.

Starting off your business venture is a beautiful mix of both excitement and fear. However, there is a very fine line between these two emotions. One can easily mistake one for the other and cause you to give up if you fall onto the wrong side of the line.

Entrepreneurship is a skill that not many have perfectly mastered. Being an entrepreneur gives you a different kind of satisfaction since you get to call the shots, work on your own time, and reap all the profits. It seems very glamorous for those willing to take the risk, and more often than not, these are the ones who succeed.

Everybody knows that around 90% of startups wind up even before incorporation. There are three main things that not many know about entrepreneurship and can be the difference between these 90% and the rest 10%. In no specific order these three are as follows:

Learn from Your Mistakes

As a young or new entrepreneur, many things may be happening just as you planned them out until, one day, they don’t. All entrepreneurs face this – their first big hurdle, their first roadblock. Some choose to back down, while some go on.

Making mistakes when doing something you’re new to is only natural, and you should pursue it. Usually, once you cross this first bump, you’ll gain so much knowledge and boost your confidence, making you mentally tougher and sharpening your skills.

The hurdle could be anything; declining growth rate or even stagnation; the customers could be finding defects in your product or the fact that the supply curve is not aligned to meet the demands, thus leaving so much profit on the table.

Being an entrepreneur is a great way to practice learning from your own mistakes and accepting constructive criticism.

Target Audience

The target audience is the term used for potential customers for whom the organization strives. For example, – Nike’s target audience is athletes, and Dominoes is young adults.

This is the one that many young and inexperienced entrepreneurs get wrong. If you desire to satisfy everyone, you will end up satisfying no one. There would always be people you can’t do anything about. You will have to learn to make peace with it. Research to find out the target audience respective to your venture is the key in this situation.

Look to Customers for Inspiration

Most entrepreneurs believe that since it’s their company, they can just put out the product or service they want, and people will buy it. That’s an entirely wrong approach; basic marketing will tell you that you will gain maximum when developing your products for the customers. Always build what customers want to buy, not what you want to sell. Having your customers give you feedback and accepting criticism is a great way to make your product better and help you build your brand.

These three tips usually fly under the radar and get overshadowed by thoughts of making the big bucks and proliferating without setting up strong roots. These points help you get the big bucks and set a strong foundation, but not many consultants will tell you this.

Contributed by Hannah Nelson, S.E.P. Entrepreneurship, Stanford Graduate School of Business