15 Ugly Truths About Entrepreneurship Everyone Should Know Before Starting a Business

Becoming an entrepreneur isn’t everything you see on Instagram or what you see in most interviews. There’s no map and what has worked for another company may not work for you. You’ll constantly find yourself in a state of despair and hopelessness but still have to keep your head above water in order to not look like a failure to everyone who has believed in you. 

1. Most things don’t work the first try

Just about everything you do seems to somehow “not work”. If you’re developing an App or software, expect it to turn out completely different than how you explained it to your developers. If you’re running an online store or business, expect emails to your customers to go straight to spam for some reason. Things never seem to work the first, second, or sometime the 50th times. But you keep going and keep fixing until it works!

2. The REAL stressor that breaks you

You obviously expected a certain level of stress. But we bet you never expected WHERE it will come from. Your startup will without a doubt give you plenty of stress to deal with, however most of that is eustress and good for you. Solving business related stress makes you feel good. The stress of dealing with everything else around you is what will ultimately wear you out. Your business is starting to grow and now moving higher up your ladder of priorities. Other things are starting to become less important but you still need to take care of them. And taking care of them starts to become more stressful and mundane without yielding much reward. 

3. Losing friends

Expect to lose the majority of your friends. Being an entrepreneur is hard and making time for your friends will gradually become harder. You can only bail on your friends and families so often before they stop inviting you out. 

4. It’s a REALLY long journey

Don’t expect your business to take off overnight. Most entrepreneurs expect their idea to take off and exit within a year or two. Having that kind of expectation will often lead to feeling like a failure and losing faith in your business. Tony Robin says, “Most people overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in a decade.” 

5. Regrets

Oh yea…expect this to happen real soon. And expect it to happen often. You will regret all the sacrifices you’ve ever made for this business when you start considering choosing tofu over chicken just to save a few bucks at Shoprite. 

6. Anxiety Competition

It’s normal to worry that somebody out there is executing the same idea. Having anxiety over potential competition is natural. Don’t let this drag you down. Let it inspire you to work harder and become better than your imaginary competitors.

7. Other People Depend On You

It’s not just about you anymore. It’s not just your life and your future that’s at risk. Once your business starts taking off and you become an employer, you’re responsible for everyone you employ. 

8. You’ll see people’s true colors

Will Smith once said, “If you’re absent during my struggle, don’t expect to be present during my success.” Unfortunately those closest to you may act differently depending on where you are in life. Those who are true to themselves are worth their weight in gold. 

9. It never gets better for those closest to you

This is a strange one because it’s both a good and a bad thing. You’ll eventually make promises to either yourself or a significant other that things will get better and you’ll take them on some exotic vacation etc. Unfortunately it never truly gets better. At first you’ll struggle to get your FIRST client. After that, you’ll stress out on getting your 10th client. And before you know it, you’re constantly chasing bigger and bigger things. That’s your nature as an entrepreneur, you’ll always want more. 

10. Leadership is hard

Once you start having people work for you, you’ll quickly realize how difficult it is to get a group of people to work productively together to achieve a common goal. Leadership is a lot harder than you think because it’s not just doing a few things. True leadership require years of commitment, hard work, and self discipline to prove yourself a competent leader to your team. 

11. No Appreciation

If you’re a good leader, then you’ll know that appreciation is what YOU give to others, not what you expect to receive in return for your hard work. No matter what you’ve done and what you’ve sacrificed, you won’t be appreciated for it. But it will be demanded of you. 

12. Meditation becomes your best friend

As silly as it was in your teens, meditation now becomes a ritual you can’t live without. It becomes the only few minutes in your day where you can think clearly and not be bombarded at every angle. 

13. Dealing with being sick

At first you’ll be invincible and can do just about anything to your body and deprive it of sleep for days on end. After a while…you’ll actually get sick. It’s a weird feeling being sick and not having insurance because your company isn’t quite there yet. But this will be one of the many challenges you’ll have to overcome as an early stage founder. 

14. Realizing that you’re actually “stupid”

This may or may not come as a shock to you but you’ll eventually realize how stupid you are or have been with your business. There will be plenty of “Aha!” moments where you asked yourself “how could I have been so stupid?!” These are character defining moments that you need to cherish and take notes of for your future self. After all…if you know everything, why aren’t you rich yet? 

15. You’re going to look back and cringe

These are the best moments. At some point in your business you will look back at posts, photos, tweets, text messages, and notes and just…cringe. Similar to feeling stupid, these are also character defining moments that you should cherish. What’s the difference between this and #14?  This is absolutely hilarious and your fellow team mates will die of laughter while you die on the inside.