3 Things They Don’t tell You about as a First-Time Entrepreneur

Three years ago, I stumbled upon the magical world of entrepreneurship in an undergraduate management fundamentals class when my professor asked how many of us want to work in corporates and how many of us want to be entrepreneurs? Around 95% of students said they want to work in corporates, and the remaining 5% said they pretty much wanted to create their own ventures and become entrepreneurs.

At the time, I had no idea what the word meant exactly but, what I basically understood is that it means starting and managing your own business so I raised my hand saying that I want to be an entrepreneur with the intention to find out more about entrepreneurs, what they do, and how can I be one. So, I started reading about this fairytale of a world where you get to build awesome products and services, get 6 digits’ investment rounds, be your own boss, and have the prestigious career of CEO’s and top executives. Who wouldn’t want that, right?! I know I did.

So, I started my entrepreneurial journey back in summer 2013 during which I started and pulled the plug on two companies (which I will talk more about in upcoming articles), and got the opportunity to work as a personal assistant to a renowned Egyptian Angel investor and chairman of one of the top VC firms in the MENA region therefore, I decided to share with you what I learned so far as an entrepreneur in process and as someone who got an up close look at the other side of the start-up community (i.e. investors), the ins and outs of VC firms and what investors usually look for in start-ups.

Thus, without further ado, here are 3 things they don’t tell you about as a first time entrepreneur:

 1.Learning is not FREE.

Very few of us are lucky enough to find their passion in industries where they have a family business, and this usually makes things 10 times more challenging, since there is a learning curve that gradually and incrementally increases as you build up your experience, skills, and network. I must tell you this is a very difficult experience on the personal level because deep down you know you are getting better at this but, it’s not yet visible to the outside world including your family, friends, fellow CEO friends and the entrepreneurship community as a whole thus, be careful this is the point where it feels like you are injecting all this effort, money and time into your startup but, you are not going anywhere.

 Lesson:

It’s very crucial to understand that learning is a gradual process and it does take time, money and effort as you will probably learn through trial and error. Plus, entrepreneurs have different personalities, talents, ideas and ways of doing things and what could work for you and your venture might not work for another entrepreneur.

 2.Raising money is not equal to hitting the jackpot  

From websites and E-commerce platforms, to complex on-demand transportation and delivery API’s, it just seems like everybody is raising money these days. I know to you as a first-time entrepreneur it must feel like look at all those people raising millions of dollars one investment round after another and becoming overnight millionaires and here I’m desperately trying to make ends meet and survive another month.

 Lesson:

You need to realize that this is not free money, these entrepreneurs often decide to give up a part of their company in exchange for increasing their market share or expanding into other markets. You need to educate yourself about investment and raising money, decide whether you need it or not, and how much money do you need in order to grow at every stage.

 3.People are NOT always right.

It is very natural to look for feedback, I mean you would really want to know what other people think of your idea, business model and maybe offer some valuable advice that can help you improve your initial concept. However, (Spoiler Alert!) the majority of the comments you will most likely receive are going to be along the lines of “but, millions of people out there are doing exactly what you are doing, what makes you special?”, “I can’t really see how are you going to make money out of that”, and of course let’s not forget the scalability fanatics who are building the Uber or AirBnB of their designated industry who will confidently proclaim “that’s not scalable, you have a lot of operational baggage”.

 Lesson:

Asking for feedback and advice can sometimes mean the difference between success and failure therefore, try to cut the noise and definitely reach out to people who have experience with similar business models or ideas because their advice will save you a lot of time, money and effort.

This article was previously published on Medium