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CHALLENGES
IN THE LIFE OF AN
ENTREPRENEUR

How to start a business:

Thorough Business Model

Well researched Business Plan
Beginning with a client

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Finance

Most entrepreneurs go into business with

inadequate capital hoping to secure more
capital once business begins to grow.
But face capital challenges a few months after
operation.
When capital challenges are not addressed in
time most businesses fall flat on their face.
Entrepreneurs must do necessary research
before starting a business to avoid facing
capital challenges before the first year of
operation.
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Finance

Preparing conservative cash in flow and

liberal cash outflow projections
Developing funding proposals or
applications to be written and/or
presented for loans/equity
Meeting Venture capitalists or Angel
investors
Debt or Equity

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Finance

Growing Fast
Vis-a-vis
Slow Growth
Sticking to a budget.
Starting small and letting a business grow
at its own pace also ensures that the
capital generated from doing business
can adequately cover all operational
expenses and future expansion plans.
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Permissions & Policies

Entrepreneurs confront with mazes of
ambiguity when they try to navigate the
corridors of:
a. Permissions
b. people
c. Policies
d. Interpretations of legal frameworks and
their corresponding requirements can also
be frustratingly unclear and often ad hoc
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Cash flow and financial

management

May need to pass up promising opportunities if

pursuing them would mean starving your core
business of essential funding.
Every element of working capital should be
carefully controlled to maximise your free cash flow.
Effective credit management and tight control of
overdue debts are essential.
You may also want to consider raising financing
against trade debts.

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How to run the business:

The implementation stage is real make-or-break

point of an entrepreneurial venture.
A wide variety of skills needed at implementation
stage, that no one person can have the skills to
manage all the functions well.
One way to look at this implementation stage is to
look at how many different skills are involved in
operating a business.
The real talent is for entrepreneurs to recognize
what they do well and then find employees or
subcontractors who can fill the gaps.
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How to run the business:

Solutions

Discussion groups
Educational resources
Professional associations
And publications to turn to for support and
counsel.

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Inventory Management

Good stock control and effective supplier

management tend to become increasingly
important as businesses grow.
Holdings of obsolete stock may become a problem.
Work with suppliers to reduce delivery cycles, or
switch to suppliers and systems that can handle
just-in-time delivery.

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Lack of Marketing

Keeping up with the market:

Dynamic Market Research not as a oneoff activity at time of launch.
The more you succeed, the more
competitors notice - and react to - what
you are doing.
Apparently loyal customers can be quick
to find alternative suppliers who provide
a better deal.
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Understanding where your products are in their

lifecycles can help you work out how to
maximise overall profitability.
At the same time, you need to invest in
innovation to build a stream of new, profitable
products to market.
Identifying the key drivers of growth

Carry out extra research as well to test

customer reaction to a new product.

Marketing vis-a-vis Sales

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Information

Published information can provide useful insights into market

conditions and trends.
Build up an in-depth picture of what customers want, how
they behave and which of your marketing approaches work
best.
Taking the time to talk to key customers pays off.
Suppliers and other business partners can be important
sources of market information.
Encourage your employees to share what they know about
customers and the market.
Effective IT systems can help to share and analyse key
information such as customers' purchasing behaviour and
preferences.
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Human Resources:

Recruitment
Remuneration
Training
Trust: Business Secret
Retention

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Planning ahead

Today (Existing customers or problems)

vis-a-vis
Tomorrow (Future Opportunities, outsourcing or franchising)
Need to revisit and update your business plan regularly.
Strategy needs to evolve to suit your changed circumstances.
Watch out for being too opportunistic ask whether new ideas
suit your strengths & overall vision of where the business is going
Focus might need change from winning new customers to building
profitable relationships and maximising growth with existing
customers as they often have greater potential for profit and can
also provide reliable cash flow.
Newer relationships may increase turnover, but the profit margins
may be lower, which may not be sustainable.

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Impulsive Behaviour or Gut feeling

vis-a-vis
Research or Systematic planning

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Solution
vis-a-vis
Problem
Systematic Problem Solving:
Ignoring problems complicates the process further.
In other words you need to take care of things today
instead of putting them off until tomorrow
So if you feel the need to dump something. Dont wait
Do it today!
If you are thinking about cleaning out your fridge after
the weekend. DO IT RIGHT NOW!

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Poor organization

Leads to lack of focus

They cant be able to create goals for their business.
Lack of focus also eliminates innovation as an entrepreneur doesnt brainstorm with staff to
come up with better ways of doing business.
LACK OF FOCUS IS COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE IN EVERY SENSE OF THE WORD. SUCCESSFUL
BUSINESS KNOW WHAT ORGANIZED IS AND NEVER LOSE FOCUS!

An entrepreneur needs to write down business goals and deadlines for meeting the goals to
ensure that focus is generated. Well written goals eliminate procrastination which is among
the most common organizational challenges facing entrepreneurs. It is common to find that
many entrepreneurs have numerous exciting things that they should accomplish for their
business however they fail to take the actual step of doing these things because of factors
such as procrastination. It is possible to stop procrastination by focusing on the goals of a
business. This way an entrepreneur concentrates on the excitement of getting his business
to the next level other than the boredom of actually doing it.

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Poor delegation of duties

Control
vis-a-vis
Too much delegation
Time Management
Solution:
Effective Delegation
Effective Secretary preferably a lady who is not beautiful
Lunch meeting with key resources
E-mail management: Logging on for fixed one hour in
morning and evening

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Problems
Vis--vis
Opportunities

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Idea people
vis-a-vis
Implementation people

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Skills that you would like to develop in yourself in

this Trimester: Develop an Action Plan
Skill

Current level
of
Competency
on 10 point
scale

Effort to be made

Desired level
of
Competency
on 10 point
scale

Planning
Decisionmaking
Leadership
Team-spirit
Communicatio
n Skills:
- Writing
- Speaking
- Listening
Analytical &
logical
reasoning

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