Starting your own business can yield amazing rewards but at the same time its a pretty big risk. I was recently asked in the Q&A why people fail at starting their own businesses. I came up with several reasons and wanted to expand more on this.
Fear - Its balls out to quit your day job and start your own company. There are no guarantees. It took me 4 years to take the plunge and a huge push from my wife to do it and I never quit my day jobs? I got canned.
Excuses - This is the #1 reason people do not ever get started. People will always think of reasons not to be successful.
Stress - Owning your own business is stressful. Especially when you grow and have employees. I am very hands on and always want to do all the work myself? but its just not possible. Plus I have employees that are just better at many things then I am and I need to let them do the job. Then you have the financials which add a shit ton of stress.
Comfort - Lets be honest. Most 9-5 jobs are pretty comfy. You get up at 8am grab your coffee in to work by 8:30 to gossip for a bit. Grab your TPS reports and highlighter and start to go through them. You finish the first batch about 11:30 time to goto lunch with the gang. After a good social lunch you head back to the office to grab the rest of your TPS reports until 4:45 when you start to shut it down and head out. Home by 5:30. Pretty nice. When you own your own company your on 24/7 or atleast thats how it is with me. Server issues at 3am.. Im up and working on it or calling dillsmack if I cant figure it out quick. I miss the comfort of just having a easy 9-5 gig. But not that much =P
The Dip - Everyone loves the initial dreams of owning your own business but soon after the fun thoughts leave the real work begins. Powering through that dip is a mother. We go through it every time we start a new website. Being able to power through the dip until you reach a tipping point is probably the biggest reasons companies fail.
Motivation - Some people are just motivated more then others. When I first started my own company my main motivation for kicking ass was that I was terrified to go back to a corporate 9-5 job. That was 5 years ago. Now my motivation is more to keep kicking ass so my employees/partners never have to work for a corporate 9-5 job ever again.
There are others like ? lazy and not working hard but I think they are more of a effect from the above.
I know a lot of you are close to starting your own business. I hear from you every day. What is holding you back?
http://www.shoemoney.com/