Overlooked Risks of Starting a New Business

Posted in Entrepreneurship | 18 comments

Starting a new business is exciting. But at the same time, it is filled with high-stake risks.

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, approximately half of small business start-ups fail within the first five years.

The chances of success look rather slim, but understanding the risk of what you’re going into lessens the potential of a business failure.

As a start-up business owner, there are inevitable challenges that you have to face and overcome. But then, the biggest mistake of all would be not pursuing your goal of starting a business, just because you’re afraid of the risk involved.

How can you avoid the fate of start-up failure?

Jumping into the start-up pool will become less risky once you understand these risks and determine how to approach them. By doing your homework, planning and preparing your strategy, you will increase your chances of success and make it work.

Here are some of these commonly overlooked risks:

Product or Services Risk

Know what you are offering or selling to the market. This is fairly easy. But you also have to know how to clearly and fully explain your offerings, the problem it solves, and why it’s worth purchasing. If you can’t do that, it makes it hard for people to pay attention to your products or services, let alone spend their money on them.

This risk is controllable. Just ensure that your offerings have an opportunity to address market needs. Do your research; know the industry and target market, and how your offerings will fit into this landscape.

Market Risk

An important risk factor is when business owners don’t know their market, are targeting the wrong market or if there is no market for products or services. An overly saturated market can also be detrimental to a new business.  Just because you have a good idea and it is liked by everyone you know doesn’t mean that your venture will be a success.

Research the market thoroughly. Know your customers and the current market conditions. Determine the market potential for your products or services so you can uncover customer needs and wants.

Competitive Risks

Start-ups are like small fish in the big ocean. Beating the competition and getting part of the market share is a real challenge.

It is a challenge for you to stand-out and be noticed. There should be a competitive advantage central to your business that will give you an edge over the others. This gives customers a reason to buy from you.

For instance, Google’s biggest competitive advantage is its search algorithm. What about your start-up? Well, it can be your business team, your intellectual property, or anything else.

Know your advantage and make sure that it is truly competitive.

Management Risk

Business owners who have few or no management skills face a huge challenge in running their new venture. Some entrepreneurs tend to lose sight of the overall execution and strategy they need to implement. Others overlook crucial details on overall business execution.

All of these can hurt the most important business functions and the company’s bottom line. It has a huge effect on sales, quality, customer service and more.

Financial Risk

Cash shortage, or not having enough capital, creates a considerable threat to new businesses. It can make or break your chance to succeed. Most entrepreneurs fail to create working budgets and financial projections.

Know that a business needs marketing materials, equipment, office supplies, other inventories and ongoing expenses to run effectively. It is also vital to determine whether the product or service will be enough to support the financial obligations of the business. There should be enough funds to shoulder expenses until the business turns a profit.

These days, entrepreneurs are more fortunate as crowdfunding becomes a popular concept. Aside from an entrepreneur’s family and friends, there are also angel investors and venture capital firms where they can secure additional financing.

There are many start-up risks to consider when taking on any new business venture. By planning and having an effective risk-management strategy, you’ll eventually see that the payoff is sweet and worth the risk.

Interested in finding ways to create a risk-management plan?

Start by watching our business-altering video titled “The 3 Biggest Lead Generation Mistakes Small Businesses Make… And How to Overcome Them All.” We’ll reveal the strategies you can immediately deploy that will enable you to out-think, out-market and out-sell your competition. http://maximizeracademy.com/