Aggressive entrepreneurs can make fatal mistakes

Editor’s note: Michelle Stockman works with Little Rock-based Arkansas Capital Corp. to promote entrepreneurship development around the state. Stockman earned a bachelor’s degree from Loyola University-Chicago in communications and fine arts, and earned a master’s in entrepreneurship from Western Carolina University. Her thoughts on business success appear each week on The City Wire.

Nothing will get in the way of a determined individual seeking to start a business.

However there are many common mistakes entrepreneurs make in starting a business. In a recent blog post at VC Deal Lawyer, Chris McDemus assembled a list of 15 mistakes commonly made by start-ups. Here’s a look at four of the most deadly:

• Not having a clear business plan.
“The mantra here is focus, focus, focus,” advises McDemus. “If you try to become all things to all people, you will likely end up being nothing to nobody.”

Investors, he says, back business plans that are clear and show some rational path to acceptable returns.

• Failing to identify a market for your product/service.
Having and developing a product or service is one thing, but finding someone to buy it is a whole different story. McDemus notes that “unfortunately, some entrepreneurs make the mistake of investing time and money into building the product or service before they’ve even considered who is going to buy it or how you are going to market and sell it to them. The technical entrepreneurs often get caught up in this problem as they focus on key features and functionality over engaging in the proper market research.”

• Not being able to re-invent as you go.
Improvise, adapt and overcome, is the perfect mantra for an early-stage start-up. Even the “best laid” plans run aground, he notes, and you need to be able to turn the ship on a dime and possibly take a different route to address a problem.

• Failing to build a sustainable business around intellectual property.
“Intellectual property is only one leg of the stool; you need all of the legs if you want the stool to stand and not wobble or fall down,” says McDemus. “The only way to monetize intellectual property is to build a sustainable business around it.

While some businesses are not concerned with intellectual property protection, other start up mistakes usually center around the entrepreneur not taking the time to engage in obtaining the proper information needed for the type of business being started.

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