Guide For Startups: The Reality of Running Your Own Business

When a woman starts her own business, people always have this ideal picture of her – her being her own boss and answering only to herself, doing what she wants, whenever she wants to, and having a steady flow of income coming in. 

But people in the know are aware that this is not how it's actually like – at least not in the early stages of running a business.

So today, I want to share with you the reality of “being your own boss” not to discourage you to pursue your dreams of becoming a woman entrepreneur, but to help you better prepare for the challenges ahead.

The Realities

You have other bosses aside from yourself

That’s a straight hard fact right there. Yes, when you’re just starting your own business, you’ll realize that you have many “bosses” to please – your clients. If you have 5 clients, then you have 5 people to answer to and to please. 

You’re in that stage where you want to build a good reputation for your business so that you tend to be extra flexible in accommodating the requests of your first few clients.

Your audience is also your boss

Make no mistake – your target audience is also your boss. You don’t create posts and website updates for yourself, you’re making them for your readers and your target audience. 

You have to wear more than one hat

Because you’re just starting out and don’t have that much financial resources yet to hire people, you’ll often find yourself wearing different hats at the same time.  You have to come up with the business plan yourself, do your marketing, write your own blog posts, update your site, go networking with people, make and close sales and all those other things you have to do. 

But once you’re able to hire out, do so immediately. To be able to become a more effective woman entrepreneur, you have to start delegating tasks.

Income won’t be steady

Unless you’ve already established your business, your income won’t be regular. You’ll soon experience weeks of having no income at all not just because you haven’t made any sales but also because your clients are late paying their bills. 

This is one of the hardest parts of starting your own business because it feels like you’re not making any financial progress. You have to wear your finance-manager hat and try to manage your budget and finances carefully.

You get to work at odd hours

Although you’re free to work anytime you want, you are always on-call. Again, this is a very common scene in all startups. Sometimes you have to work odd hours and on weekends to be able to finish a project or cater to the needs of your clients. 

Final Thoughts

Every startup entrepreneur go through these and at one point or another, we’ll all find ourselves down the trenches.

And if you’re a startup business owner who’s up for the challenge, or a successful woman entrepreneur who has been down the trenches but was able to bounce back, I SALUTE YOU!

How about you, what have you experienced during your startup days? We would love to hear your stories. Please leave a comment below.