100 Reasons you should NOT Start a Business

Movies like The Social Network and TV shows like Silicon Valley glamorize the startup life as one of excitement, passion, and — ultimately — pay off. Stories like Instagram’s Kevin Systrom walking away with 400 million after selling Instagram to Facebook make it impossible not to think. Maybe I should go into business for myself…

You’re probably able to separate fact from fiction and recognize Systrom’s case as a one-in-a-million (one-in-a-400-million?) success story. You may even know that, according to the Small Business Administration, while two-thirds of small businesses survive two years in business, only one-third survive past year ten.

If you’re still feeling that entrepreneurial itch, it’s time to get real. Business ownership on any scale is hard work. If you aren’t 100% sure you’re up to the task, check yourself against the following 100 reasons NOT to start a business -

You Aren’t Cut Out for Business Ownership.

4. You’re running away from something. Take it from Susan Payton, writing for AllBusiness — “You need to run toward entrepreneurship if you want to succeed. Otherwise, you’re just hiding from your problems and creating more.”

5. You aren’t confident You don’t need to be arrogant to succeed, but you need enough confidence to enroll others in your vision.

6. You aren’t disciplined. Do not pass go. Do not collect 200 dollars. And do not start a business if you aren’t disciplined enough to get through the inevitable hard times.

7. You don’t have established productivity systems in place Get productive before you start a business — not after. Practice effective time and energy management before leaping.

8. Your biggest goal in your life is happiness. Working long hours with no breaks can leave you decidedly unhappy. You need a bigger motivator in place than your personal happiness if you want to push past the hard times.

9. You hate having difficult conversations. Difficult conversations will happen with customers, employees, vendors, investors, and more. We’re paraphrasing, but as they say, “If you can’t handle the heat, don’t open a kitchen (or any other business, for that matter).”

10. You aren’t passionate about something. Successful businesses are driven by passion. If you don’t have a passion of your own, what can you honestly expect to contribute to those that do?

11. You don’t have a strategic vision for the future Effective entrepreneurs are big thinkers. You must be able to see beyond your current challenges to your future success.

12. You don’t know what your strengths are. Knowing your strengths enables you to spend time on the activities where you’ll have the highest impact and delegate tasks that others are better suited to.

13. You can’t objectively analyze your weaknesses. Everybody has weaknesses. There’s no shame in that. Understand what yours are so that you can create a plan to remedy them.

14. You can’t accept the possibility of failure Entrepreneurs must live with the possibility of failure every day. If that thought leaves you too incapacitated to function, choose another path.

15. You aren’t willing to trade the work you’re good at for CEO life. Just because you’re a good accountant doesn’t mean you’ll be a good CEO of an accounting firm. If it’s the work itself you like, stick to a regular job or self-employment.

16. You’ve burned all your bridges Business owners need networks to succeed. If you’ve ended all your relationships on bad notes, you’ll have a much harder time getting off the ground.

You Aren’t In The Right Place In Your Life.

5. Your partner or spouse isn’t on board Consultant Noah Fleming shares — “If you run into the situation where your spouse won’t let you start a business, chances are your spouse feels that way for a reason.”

6. You can’t (or won’t) travel Business travel isn’t always required, but attending events — out-of-state or otherwise — can speed up the critical process of building your network.

7. Your health won’t allow intense work. The “sitting at your desk all day, eating Ramen at night” lifestyle isn’t great for anyone’s health. Those dealing with chronic health conditions need to consider the potentially negative impact of extreme stress carefully.

8. You’re in school. Startup businesses require all your focus Juggling school with these added demands means, necessarily, giving both a half-hearted effort.

9. Your support systems are weak Successful entrepreneurs don’t do it alone. Proceed with caution if you have no partner to share household responsibilities with, no friends to help relieve your stress, or no mentors to guide you.

10. You have no good outlets for stress. If you don’t currently have strategies in place for releasing stress, form them now — before you start your new company.

11. You aren’t willing to give up your hobbies We love hobbies, but if you’re committed to one in a major way that you aren’t willing to give up, it may be tough to find enough energy and focus to dedicate to both — at least in the initial stages.

12. You aren’t comfortable with technology. You don’t have to know code or cutting-edge tech to succeed in business, but you may find yourself using computer-based CRM systems, order management programs, social media marketing tools, and more. Get comfy with current tech tools before heading out on your own.

You Don’t Have the Right Personality.

13. You can’t handle confrontation. Running your own company means facing issues head-on. You don’t have to be a jerk, but you need to keep your composure while you do what needs to be done.

14. You never complete projects. Look around your desk — and be honest. Is it cluttered with projects you started but never got around to finishing? Self-motivation is a necessary trait for entrepreneurs who don’t have a boss looking over their shoulders to ensure the work gets done.

15. You’re dishonest Entrepreneurship requires honesty — with yourself, with your employees, with your customers, and with your advisors. If you’d rather lie than share uncomfortable truths, do everyone a favor and skip business ownership.

16. You’re thin-skinned. As the saying goes, haters gonna hate. Being an entrepreneur means putting yourself out there publicly. Not everyone will like you or what you stand for, so if you’re thin-skinned, you won’t be able to hack it.

You Don’t Know How to Sell

5. You aren’t able to sell mentors, investors, and other stakeholders on your vision. As an entrepreneur, you aren’t just selling to customers. You’re also “selling” your vision to the people you want onboard the bus with you.

6. You can’t get a partner on board Many successful entrepreneurs partner with others who can shore up their weaknesses. If you can’t attract a partner, it could be because of weaknesses you haven’t considered.

7. You don’t know how to motivate employees to do their best work. You have to sell employees on your vision as well. If they don’t buy into what you’re trying to accomplish, they’ll never give you their best efforts.

You Can’t Handle Risk.

1. You don’t like uncertainty Entrepreneurship means existing in a perpetual state of uncertainty. There’s no shame in admitting that that’s not right for you.

2. You don’t know how to minimize risk Successful entrepreneurs don’t take risks for the hell of it. They educate themselves and do everything they can to minimize the risk of failure. Writer Megan Elliot says — “Successful entrepreneurs don’t take big risks just for the thrill of it. Rather, they’ve calculated risk-takers who analyze situations and look for opportunities.”

3. You don’t have mentors who can help you. Yes, you can always find mentors later. But the longer you go without them, the longer you’ll lose out on a valuable resource that can help you understand the risk facing you — and how you should proceed.

4. You couldn’t handle being sued Lawsuits happen. Hopefully, you’ll never face one, but if the thought of being sued is enough to break you, you may not have the risk tolerance needed for business ownership.

5. You don’t have a plan for handling the negative press. Take a look at what happened to Chipotle. While we hope you never face such a press disaster, it’s important to think now about whether or not you’d be able to handle one.

6. Losing everything would bankrupt you. This, to entrepreneurs, is the ultimate risk. If bankruptcy would destroy you, you either need an airtight plan (plus a series of contingency backup plans) or another career.

Your Finances Aren’t In Order.

7. You assume it’ll be easy to get a bank loan Fundera reports that “ 82% of small business loan applications are currently being denied by the big banks.” Don’t expect that this option will be available for you — even if you do have strong credit and savings.

8. You have no funding plans besides venture capital. Likewise, don’t expect that an investor is going to fall into your lap and hand you millions. Pursuing venture capital is practically a full-time job in itself.

9. You assume you’ll be a crowdfunding success stories are everywhere, but raising capital on these platforms is anything but easy. If you’re committed to crowdfunding, study success stories and plan to put a lot of work into your campaign.

Your Idea Is Bad

7. You’ve done no pre-launch market testing Don’t launch a company without data proving demand for the product or service you’re envisioning. A few unsuccessful Google Adwords or Facebook Ads campaigns can prevent you from diving into a venture that won’t be successful.

8. Somebody’s already doing what you want to do — better Seeing someone else doing what you want to do isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as competition means there’s a market for your idea. However, it is a problem if you can’t identify what makes your idea better than theirs.

9. You want to get into a highly competitive market. Again, competition isn’t a bad thing, but if you want to start, say, the next Facebook, know that you’re facing an uphill, resource-intensive battle.

10. You don’t understand the market you’re entering. Why would you try to sell products or services to people you don’t understand? Spend enough time with your target market that you understand their needs and motivations.

11. You’re getting on board with a family member’s idea. Just because brother Jim has a great idea doesn’t mean that you have to join him.

You Don’t Know What You’re Doing.

1. You don’t understand how businesses work. Running a successful company requires core processes like customer service, HR, R&D, and accounting. Be wary of launching your own business if you don’t understand how all these systems work together.

2. You don’t understand what a business needs to scale. If your idea takes off, you’ll need to scale your company, which means shifting job responsibilities and expanding in other ways unless you’re deliberately starting a smaller company, understanding from the start how businesses scale can help you set things up correctly to facilitate future growth.

3. You don’t know how to delegate. You can learn this skill, but consider the following from Gary Shouldis of 3BugMedia — “As your business grows and you start to expand past a one-person band, you will need to hire and train new people, who will do things that you used to do. If you’re the micromanaging, ‘get out of my way, I can do it better’ kind of guy, and you may be in trouble.”

4. You don’t know how to hire. Eventually, you’ll be able to bring in an HR team, but know that, early on, you’ll likely be making your own hires. It’s part art and part science — and it’s something you’ll need to learn if you want to grow your business.

5. You aren’t comfortable firing underperforming employees. Firing bad workers is a necessary startup evil, and it isn’t a fun one. According to Daniel Zeevi of Dashburst — “Now that you are running a business, you’ll have to make tough decisions each day which can include firing people and sometimes throwing ‘nice’ out the window.” Can you handle being the bad guy?

6. You don’t understand cash flow Poor cash flow management is one of the leading causes of small business failure in the U.S.

Obviously, there’s no single person who meets all of these criteria. We aren’t saying that you have to be perfect to start a business — only that you need to understand how much work really goes into launching a company.

If you can be honest about your weaknesses and take the necessary steps to address them, you’ll find that all of this effort will be worth it in the end.

Quick disclaimer this article is for entertainment only, don’t let it stop you.