Thursday, March 28, 2024

Understand that Starting a Business is Hard Work

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It is important to realize that starting and running a business is hard work. While there are many benefits to being an entrepreneur, for many, starting your own business is even harder than working for a boss in a corporate setting.

When you’re an employee, you can work at your job from 9-to-5 and forget about it until the next day. When you’re an entrepreneur, there are so many things to do and so many things to think about that chances are you can lay awake at night worrying about your business.

As former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell once said: “A dream doesn’t become a reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.” (go to our business quotes section for more quotes on hard work)

Even Steve Jobs, co-founder and CEO of Apple and recognized as one of the leading innovators of our time, think entrepreneurship is hard work.

Here is what he has to say about the hard work that goes into starting a business in this interview with the Smithsonian Oral History Project:


I get asked this a lot and I have a pretty standard answer which is, a lot of people come to me and say “I want to be an entrepreneur”. And I go “Oh that’s great, what’s your idea?”. And they say “I don’t have one yet”. And I say “I think you should go get a job as a busboy or something until you find something you’re really passionate about because it’s a lot of work”.

I’m convinced that about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from non-successful ones is pure perseverance. It is so hard. You put so much of your life into this thing. There are such rough moments in time that I think most people give up. I don’t blame them. It’s really tough and it consumes your life.

If you’ve got a family and you’re in the early days of a company, I can’t imagine how one could do it. I’m sure its been done but it’s rough. It’s pretty much an eighteen-hour day job, seven days a week for a while. Unless you have a lot of passion about this, you’re not going to survive. You’re going to give it up. So you’ve got to have an idea, or a problem or a wrong that you want to right that you’re passionate about otherwise you’re not going to have the perseverance to stick it through. I think that’s half the battle right there.


So what is hard about starting and running a business? Here are some of them (and there are many more!):

  • It is not easy to find a profitable business idea that will work for you and your circumstances
  • Even if you have found the right business for you, finding money to help you jumpstart and run the business may be a tough challenge.
  • Gone will be the time you can only work from 9-to-5 as you will find yourself working through most hours, especially at the start
  • Risks face you in every corner, and you need to learn to anticipate them and deal with them
  • Finding investors, reliable business partners, and employees is not easy
  • Even if you build it, they may not come. You can’t expect customers to just waltz into your store or find your website.
  • Be ready to question yourself, doubt your abilities, and experience unrelenting stress and pressure
  • At the end of the day, despite giving it your all, your business could fail

If you are afraid of the hard work that starting a business may entail, new entrepreneurs can benefit from reading Robert J. Kriegel’s tips in his book “How to Succeed in Business Without Working So Damn Hard: Rethinking the Rules, Reinventing the Game.” He said that the key to success is working smarter, not harder. According to him, here are strategies to help you succeed without working so hard:

  • Don’t rush, as innovation requires time for incubation.
  • Think like a beginner
  • Think creatively outside the box
  • Use your head to get ahead
  • Small businesses can win out by exploiting their natural advantage: speed and innovation.

None of these, of course, is easy! But if all these do not deter you, then kudos to you, as you might be meant to be an entrepreneur! It will be a roller coaster ride, but oh so worth it.

Starting a Business is Hard Work

Originally published on October 14, 2010.

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