Just like a baby when he/she growing the first teeth, there will be infection when the teeth is breaking to the surface and the gum is swollen. Pain is a healthy indication that the baby is experiencing growth. Same with growing a company, dealing with pain and taking lesson will be an integral part.
Based on my experience there are at least three challenges am facing during the first stage in developing my company.
Challenge #1 Educate yourself fast in many different subjects.
During early stage of development you won't have enough budget to hire experienced and certified people to help you in getting things done. Therefore you need to learn many things with limited time to ensure your business operations run smoothly. In my case I need to learn about finance and sales, which is not easy. Mistakes in; calculating cost of good sold, projecting cash flow, and building profit and loss report will lead into business calamity.
Challenge #2 Face rejection and humiliation bravely.
Nobody recognise your company and yourself, so brace yourself, your potential clients will look down on you, your competitors will put bad words about you, and internally your employee might have doubt on your leadership skill. This is natural, make friend with rejection and humiliation as a part of an entrepreneur life.
Challenge #3 Stay focus.
As a leader of a young company, failures are often come in many different forms, when we get hit in our weakest spot typically our financial strength, it is very difficult to stay focus. We try so hard grabbing branches while going down, and it's very hard to think straight during the process. The strategy is to breath normally, clear your mind and remind the whole purpose of why you starting the company, what are the values/contributions you are planning to inject in the society.
Keep on learning and keep on fighting.
