Jitendra Vaswani is an Indian pro blogger, speaker and influential digital marketer. He is the founder of the Internet Marketing blog BloggersIdeas.com, and product founder at SchemaNinja.com.
In this extensive post about the “Dark Side of Entrepreneurship,” Jitendra helps bring to light and addresses issues and problems faced by men and women who aspire to become successful entrepreneurs.
What every entrepreneur should know:
No one can succeed in business without putting his 100%of everything, being it effort, capital, resources or mind. Even a SUPERMAN was not born in a day. He also had to go through various tests laid by his father for him. His training to become “an extra ordinary man” was also full of struggles and various hindrances which he had to overcome to show the world that what he is capable of. He also had to let go many things to become a strong and invulnerable man and so is the case of an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs start up life is not less than a heroic life, in which he has to overcome obstacles to prove his worth in front of people.
Starting point of establishing a new venture by a single mind is always difficult and full of suspicious.Whether one will succeed or not is the prime question which surrounds the mind of a sole entrepreneur. This waging internal war is not bloody but it does kills. One side of the mind is positive and feels good about oneself and exceed in all the endeavors. But on the other side is always putting one down with all the negatives of the world. Let’s discuss all the limitations or we can say the dark side of entrepreneurship.” In order to succeed, you must first be willing to experience failure”. The sentence itself explains that an entrepreneur may know anything about everything but he should not give up easily. Failure is good as long as it doesn’t become the habit. Let’s elaborate on this by explaining further.
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The Cynicism of Entrepreneurship:
- Lack of fellowship – Today most of the market seems to be populated with young and energetic people who lack experience. The new generation is not supported by old one because the young minds think that socializing with elders will limit their exploring and innovating capacity. So they end into hasty decision making which is not accurate for the market conditions
- Plunge into risk – There is always great risk involved in starting any sort of business whether it’s small or big scale. One has to research the prevailing market conditions before investing into anything big. Risks relating to capital and other resources are always attached before taking major decisions.
- No assurance of success – The rate of success is not equal in every type of sole proprietorship or partnership. There are many challenges and hurdles to be crossed before one receives end profits. No formula for sure shot success is discovered up till now. Patience and perseverance is very uncommon in today’s young energetic minds.
- Lack of reliability – The young entrepreneurs who do not have track or record of anything in the past tend to attract less credibility. In business world reputations are paramount. If one is surrounded by known and successful people, his credibility in the market increases and he can raise capital for investment easily.
- Lack of initiative – The drive to achieve results is the prime motive of any business leader. But that zeal and promptness is missing from today’s generation. Self-centered entrepreneurs lack that passion to share ideas and solutions to raise and develop the business empire.
- Lack of incitement – The motivation factor is the prime source of driving people to work. But the employees of the organization tend to become helpless when they do not receive proper support from their superiors. Proper code of conduct is missing in the present organizations and hence it leads to poor growth at the start up level.
- Over ambitious – A desire to attain everything fast by adopting the policy of hook or crook is the worst part for the start-up venture. Being ambitious is priceless but being too much self-esteemed about anything comes with a great price. Over-ambition goes up and beyond and it also involves stepping on others to get to where you want or only thinking of that goal in relation to yourself (ignoring other aspects of your life).
- Reclusiveness – A reserved and reclusive social attitude carries one away from the realty. We are social animals who are bind by many formalities of the surroundings. Entrepreneurs normally tend to keep themselves away from the worldly issues to get success by their own and have a lonely miserable life. They push themselves in the dark world of thoughts and desires to become successful at early stage.
- Detrimental to health – Working for long hours and not keeping a track of one’s own health leads to adverse effect on lifestyle. One becomes limited to the four walls of their own created surroundings. Sitting for long hours is the new smoking that increases the chances of diabetes, blood pressure and heart disease. While hard work often leads to great success but ignoring health for profit generation is totally miserable foe one’s life.
- Enslavement to work – Entrepreneurs become too much workaholic and spends most of their time away from family and relatives. The work pressure is usually more in case of entrepreneurs. There is no such thing called work life balance and in this competitive world one tends to become slave of his own created environment.
- Self-esteem issues – This issue is often related to young minds of today who become successful at an early age. Self-esteem is the degree to which we feel confident, consider ourselves valuable, and respect ourselves, and this sometimes affects our well-being adversely. High esteemed minds are positive in every approach but low esteemed people are filled with self-doubt, self-criticism, social isolation, suppressed anger, and shame.
- Family relations deteriorate – The long working hours and the work pressure causes family disruptions. One tends to give more time to work in order to complete the deadlines and finish the undertaken responsibilities. Family life suffers a lot due to negligence and results in breaking off.
- Resentment – The dark side of any business venture is that anyone can misuse your abilities and ditch you at any point of time. This injustice causes great feeling of disappointment, fear and anger.
- Desire for applause – Everyone desire for acclamation of his doings. But once put down on one thing cannot raise the person to start again on the other so easily. Entrepreneurs always need backing and cheering from their close ones but failure to attain that leads to isolation and negative thought process. Their thinking capacity restrains from accepting the hard fact about disapproval.
- Fear of non-performance – Various factors like age, management, manpower, capital, technology, competition etc. contribute to the non-performance of the business plans. Global corporate competition, who’s winning and who’s losing; research and development are the key factors to non-performance of set rules and regulations of business enterprise.
- No guarantee of success – Failure is something which is always expected in the beginning of every new venture .One cannot succeed in life if he doesn’t experience failure ones. Success comes with a great price paid for it and counts in all your planning done for it. New ventures are likely to fail in their start-up period. There is no sure shot success to anything in life .This failure sometimes leads to fear in the minds of young entrepreneurs who then don’t take any other chance in life.
- Excessive government interference – Nowadays the excessive and frequent change in government rules and regulations creates a big hurdle for new investors. Different types of taxes and duties levied on imports and exports create a problem for beginners.
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The Dark Side of Entrepreneurship – Conclusion :
Let’s conclude by the words of Christian Larson – “Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle”.
Life is like riding a bicycle in which one has to balance while moving ahead. So is the life of an entrepreneur, who has to find balance in everything and keep moving forward irrespective of any hurdles which come in the way.
There are two type of people in this world-one who risks everything and steps out the door without hesitation and second type is the one who thinks too much even before opening a window. Entrepreneurship is for those who dare to think beyond imagination and pursue their dream without giving another thought to it. There is dark side of everything but one has to explore the available opportunities and take advantage of it.
However one has to know that risk taking is a part of development and to achieve that one has to maintain a level of curiosity, motivation and desire to move forward in life. People must reflect on their actions and assess the results consciously. When the consequences of one’s actions bare no meaning to self, one can become destructive to the people around them.
About Jitendra Vaswani:
Jitendra Vaswani is a professional blogger, speaker and an influential digital marketer. He is the founder of Internet Marketing blog BloggersIdeas.com, and Product Founder of SchemaNinja.com. He has worked with leading companies like Zopper, Firstcry and Payoneer and helped them establish a formidable online reach.
Vaswani started with his entrepreneurial journey with his famous blog: BloggersIdeas which is about Blogging, Digital Media and Technology. The blog became an instant success and Jitendra went on to establish his own Digital Marketing Firm called DigiExe.
Based on Jitendra’s core principles of living on his own turns, working on what he loves and making the maximum effort every time, DigiExe has leaped forward and helped major online brands generate increased worth.
Make sure you check out his detailed personal portfolio at Jitendra.co
Outstanding interview! Thankfully, my wife and I both work together as entrepreneurs, side by side. So we don’t have the same impact on our family life that others would encounter. There are still a few stresses when it comes to raising a 9-month-old that’s starting to get into everything while trying to work. lol
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