Subrata Roy Sahara, a renowned entrepreneur and founder of Sahara business group, while talking with a BBC Bangla journalist had soliloquy, “When I go for new business ventures, firstly I am turned by emotion, then think deeply for getting more insight and become rationale”. It means he firstly makes business decisions emotionally and then become rationale. Like him most entrepreneurs make business decisions moved by emotion, which induces them to make an action being experienced by any prospects. Like as, a person after visiting a fair, where a lot of business venture gather, or visiting a place where resources are yet to be used, can think for doing business. In this case when she/he firstly thinks for doing business can be considered as emotional action. But, if later on he/she thinks deeply about the thing then it approaches to reality or rationality. It’s seen that in business arena a startup entrepreneur faces more problems if he/she doesn’t get deep understanding of it, which we are denoting rationality. For doing business emotion is prerequisite, but better understanding of what it is doing, its prospects and long term goals must be clear.
When a person takes any initiative which can be through motivated by emotion or rationality; he/she usually faces some challenges which are predictable as well. But the degree and quantum of challenges vary person to person. Like as, most of the entrepreneurs say, money is the major challenge, some say money doesn’t matter rather idea and its implementation matters and it’s the major challenge. Someone also thinks how you deal with the peoples is most challenges. Basically, degrees of challenges depend on the type of business he/she doing. However, here is a short list of such challenges:
1. Entrepreneurs face challenges in gathering investment-money and earning money: Entrepreneurs need to make money; the money can be either investment or return; or both. But, finding investment for any startup is always the most challenging job for any startup entrepreneur. However, after congregation of investment; entrepreneurs get challenges in finding out way of return from it.
There is no direct suggestion about how to get money as investment. Usually it is considered that idea and its proper implementation helps to make money. Depending on business model’s variations money return model also varies, but firstly an entrepreneur needs to sell his/her idea to the potential investors and then best try to find out the ways and procedures of return from it. (But, in real world it is not as easy as it is said or written). In this case, an enterprise’s revenue model should always be clear and how many days it will take to get return should also be estimated and under forecast.
2. Entrepreneurs face challenges in building & managing a team: Startup’s team building is a vital resolution for an entrepreneur, because he/she alone can’t manage all sorts of business activities. So, every entrepreneur needs to build a team who can carry out the all sorts of vested responsibilities. Here, an entrepreneur needs to gather expertise; skilled and passionate people from diverse field. But, building and managing a team is another vital challenge for a startup entrepreneur. Because, it’s rare to have a group of people who will be approached to one goal and most of the cases expertise and skilled members aren’t found and to build team bonding it requires much time.
However, after finding a group of people, a startup entrepreneur should provide job roles and responsibilities to all of its members. Here, an entrepreneur also needs to manage flexible, collaborative and amiable work environment where everyone will find proper recognition.
3. Entrepreneurs face challenges while dealing with different parties: Startup entrepreneurs need to deal with different third parties (if it’s a production oriented enterprise) like as raw material suppliers, different types of middlemen, transport agents, labors, packager, realtors for renting office or warehouses, ad agencies and so on. They also need to deal with buyers while selling its products. But, managing relations with these sorts of people is always challenging for a new startup entrepreneur. Moreover, making treaties and deeds, communicating with them through mailing or phone calls being concerned in maintaining schedule- these entire make a startup entrepreneurs days challenging. At this period an entrepreneur needs to be meticulous, conscious and better understanding on these people and they can get suggestions from the experienced entrepreneurs.
A successful entrepreneur once told me, “A startup entrepreneur is bound to face challenges because a business person who has been doing business for 10 years probably will get around 100 problem’s checklist where a new comer will get check list of 20-30 problems. I think an entrepreneur learns tackling challenges through experiences. So, the more he/she experiences the more he/she will learn to deal with challenges. Another thing is an entrepreneur needs to explore the things surrounding him; it helps him/her to be better.”
