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Starting a business is hard work, and recent statistics published by the Small Business Administration show that 49% of start-ups fail within the first five years. One of the main problems that entrepreneurs face is that they are doing something they have never done before, which means mistakes are bound to be made.

However, while everyone is bound to make a few of their own mistakes along the way, learning from those who have gone before you is one of the best ways to avoid the common pitfalls that newbie business owners make.


In other words, you have to learn to think like an expert, even though you may still be new to business management. Following are a couple of key things you can learn from those who have gone before you:

Don’t go it alone 

Two are better than one, and this is especially true when it comes to running a business. The fact is that most successful startups have been founded by two or more people.

Business management is difficult, and on your own it can be downright grueling. Even if you are one of the few people who can manage to do all the work on your own, you will still benefit from having someone else to discuss new ideas and brainstorm with.

Plainly put, you need to have a second opinion and someone to tell you when your decision is a bad one, or encourage you to carry on when things get tough – and they will.

Along with having a partner to carry some of the load for you, it is also extremely important to listen to advice, criticism and feedback from those who are more experienced than you in business matters. It’s easy to get so focused on your idea or way of doing things, that you close yourself off to other opinions and advice.

Take every criticism in mind and think about the pros and cons; you don’t always have to go along with what others think is best, but it is important to keep an open mind and take new ideas into consideration.

Start simple and work your way up

One big reason that many startups fail early on, is that they want to do things differently from the competition; they want their product or service to be the first, and they want it to have all the trimmings and extra features they can come up with.

Being creative and coming up with ideas that are fresh and new is certainly not a bad thing, but when you are just starting out, you want your product to be easy to understand and you want to be able to get it off the ground with the least amount of time and money possible.

Once you are well-established and you have hooked your audience, you can start adding new features and getting more complex.

A good example of this is Facebook. It didn’t launch with many of the features that it has today, like timeline, likes and tags. It was simple to understand, and it made do with the most basic of features, giving users a quick and easy introduction to the product.

Then, once it had its audience’s attention and people were hooked on the product, they could change and add whatever they wanted to, because its users weren’t going anywhere.

So, start simple and give your customers a straightforward and easy user experience; from there, you can start to differentiate yourself from the competition.

Identify your target audience early on

Before you launch your startup, you need to narrow down your target audience. If you cast your net too wide, you will simply not be able to manage things like marketing and product branding.
Identify your niche and customize your product or service for a specific demographic. This will make it easier and cheaper to launch and market yourself as a new startup.

For example, if you want your service or product to cater to stay at home moms, start by narrowing down your audience to those in your immediate area. Then, you could even narrow it down further by targeting mothers in a certain age group or those within a specific income range. This will help you to focus your marketing efforts and reach those people more effectively, because your product or service will speak directly to them.

Don’t try to expand too quickly

A mistake that brings many new businesses down is thinking that because they have been successful early on, they can afford to expand their business quickly.

However, expanding too quickly could lead to a number of problems such as a lack of cash flow and the inability to meet the increasing demands with your current staff and suppliers. The best way to expand your business is slowly and steadily, as this will help you to grow your customer base and your products or services simultaneously.

This doesn’t mean that you should be afraid of growth and try to repress it, but it is important to review the state of your company carefully, put the right precautions in place and make sure that you have the right people on board who can handle the increased demands that expansion will bring.

Author Bio:
Patrick and Joyce Del Rosario are Filipino business and career bloggers. They work at Open Colleges, one of the pioneers of Online education in Australia and one of the leading providers of diploma of management and small business courses.