10 Reality Checks for Aspiring Entrepreneurs

5 lessons learned from startup failure

There are millions of founders out there with opinions and lessons learned from failure. 

Tarek Arafat is one of those. He shared the reasons behind why his startup Den failed and provided some golden nuggets of advice for fellow entrepreneurs. 

1. Until what you’re building is in front of people, it is an idea and nothing more — Ship fast, ship often, ship anything. Momentum is such a tangible thing when building a startup, and the only way to keep that spark alive in your team is by shipping your versions out to real, unbiased potential users.

2. Build solutions, not products — build a solution to a problem instead of just packaging up a product as a potential solution. Your idea has to get scrutinized for it to get stronger. You have to put it in front of people and have them tear it apart for it to get better. Nothing good, effective, or useful is ever built with a fragile ego.

3. Try to do everything yourself before hiring anyone — If you aren’t wireframing, trying to put together a landing page, or not attempting to do any of the gritty pieces required to build your startup BEFORE outsourcing, then you don’t give enough of a shit about what you’re building.

4. A bigger team DOES NOT indicate success — You might think having a big team sent out a virtue signal to everyone that you, as a founder, were successful. It might be nothing more than serving your ego. When you give away equity, whomever you hire should bring something to the table and have their own superpower.

5. Stop chasing validation — We’re all guilty of wanting anything that makes you (and others around you) think you’re moving the needle when truly you aren’t. The most ironic part is many so preoccupied with trying to get noticed that they fail to do the one thing that would actually get them to attention:

   
   Building the damn solution.

👉️ For more lessons from failure, check out: My First Startup Failed — 5 Lessons I Learned to Get it Right the Next Time

10 reality checks for aspiring entrepreneurs

“I always tell the entrepreneurs I meet how stupid they are for wanting to build companies. The good ones never listen.”

Entrepreneurship ain’t easy, but that doesn’t stop the brave changemakers out there. But, before you dive in headfirst, be aware of some of the truths about becoming an entrepreneur (and kindly ignore them in the pursuit of greatness).

1. “Overnight success” is a myth — Building a successful startup takes wayyyyyyyy more time than you’re imagining. However long you think it’s going to take for you to be successful in your entrepreneurial career, go ahead and multiply by 10.

2. Failure is inevitable — It’s not just that nobody gets everything right. You’ll be lucky if you get 10% of things right. The best you can hope to do is cultivate failure as a valuable tool for learning and personal growth.

3. Markets over products — The quicker you can learn to ignore your product and focus on market penetration, the more successful you’ll be.

4. Startups are expensive — The costs of startups go well beyond the operational costs of the business itself. The biggest expense is the opportunity cost. Every month you’re eating ramen and struggling to pay rent is also a month you’re not collecting a fat paycheck from doing something else you’re likely eminently qualified for.

5. Work-life balance is a myth — Startups are all-consuming. Even when you aren’t directly working on your startup, you’ll be thinking about your startup, and it’ll make you feel guilty for not working on your startup.

6. The right team is critical — Everyone is going to constantly tell you the importance of having a great startup team. The problem is you’re not going to know what that means for a long time, so you’re going to spend the first few years of your entrepreneurial career hiring terrible people and being burned by them.

7. The illusion of control — When you run a company, you work for everyone else: your employees, your investors, your partners, and, most importantly, your customers.

8. Fundraising isn’t success — It’s a liability and a necessary evil. After all, in a perfect world, you’d be able to build everything without ever needing anything from outside stakeholders.

9. You’ll never stop learning — Entrepreneurship isn’t something anyone ever masters. Building more startups doesn’t guarantee you’ll be more successful with each successive one.

10. Prepare to be lonely — When you’re the ultimate decision maker, you’re responsible for the outcomes of every employee, every investor, every customer, and every other person who has any sort of stake in what you’re building. It’s why being an entrepreneur is one of the loneliest jobs in the world. And the more successful you get, the more lonely it becomes.

👉️ Click here for more on the 10 reality checks every aspiring entrepreneur needs to hear (and then ignore)

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