Do what you love. That’s what they say.

When you start a business, the hope is that you are building your dream, not someone else’s. You get to work on something you love every day—does it get better than that? Like when I started my first business, you will quickly learn that entrepreneurship is not as rosy as it seems. I will share 5 hard truths with you so you can go on this journey with your eyes wide open.

1 | You can’t quit, and you can’t leave

Unless you’re a company of one, you’ll feel like you can’t leave because other people are depending on you for their livelihoods. Unlike when you worked as an employee, where you could hand in your notice and be free from the job in days or weeks, you can’t just up and leave when you’re the boss. Quitting is the easy way out; unfortunately, when you run a business, there is no easy way out. I envy those who could quit during COVID and pursue their dreams or enjoy work-life balance. If I had quit then, my staff wouldn’t be able to put food on the table, and I couldn’t live with that. Could you?

2 | People Pleasers beware: you’ll always be the bad guy

When you’re starting a company, most, if not all, decisions will originate from you. Some basic decisions include: what should you spend your hard-earned cash on to generate the most ROI? What benefits should you offer your staff (when some people want dental, others want spousal coverage, and others want additional coverage) when you have a limited budget? What operational and staffing policies do you implement, and for whom do you make exceptions? My rule is that if there are any exceptions, it just means there is no rule, and you might as well scrap the policy if it doesn’t apply to everyone.

Every person feels they are in a special situation in their lives, and they are the exception. You have the lucky job of telling them you can’t help them. For the good of the business and to be equitable to all staff, you’ll need to stand your ground, and there will always be someone unhappy with you.

3 | Even when shit hits the fan, you have to be okay

When the pandemic first hit a few years ago, I didn’t know what to do. Few business owners did. Yet all of their staff were looking to them for instructions and direction. Do we stay at home or do we come to work? How long are we going to continue to work from home? Some will fault you for making decisions too slowly; others will say you’re too rash.

You definitely won’t be okay during these turbulent times, and you’ll stay up all night worrying about making the wrong call as a leader; you still have to wake up the next morning and be there leading, pretending you know what you’re doing. Employees can discuss their fears and concerns amongst themselves, but entrepreneurs rarely have anyone to talk to who understands what they’re going through.

No one has a magic 8 ball to figure out such black swan scenarios in business, and sometimes entrepreneurs may be confidently striding in the wrong direction, but staying put means death for the business, so full steam ahead it is!

4 | You’ll be productive 20% of the time

And that’s if you’re lucky. Doing what you love is a myth when you’re trying to get your business off the ground. Realistically, Maybe 20% of your time will be actually creating stuff. The rest of the time you’re answering client calls, coaching your team, putting out fires that you may or may not know exist, all while trying to think strategically about where to take the business, manage cash flow, and fix the broken blinds in one of the meeting rooms.
If you thought working for yourself meant flexibility, it means instead of limiting your work thoughts to 9 to 5 or whatever hours you put in during a work day, to thinking about work issues 24/7. You never turn off. Is this something you’re ready for? If you commit to building a business, you better not just love it. You better love, love, love, love, LOVE it, because that’s how much love you’ll need to want to stay in it during the dark times.

What are the dark times? When you’re caught in a continuous, never-ending cycle of recruiting; when client payments trickle in, and your expenses are pouring out; when your physical and mental health is so bad you can’t breathe half the time, but you are on auto-pilot in a meeting. Do you love entrepreneurship this much?

5 | You have no one or thing to blame but yourself

No one is coming to save you, and you’re the only one who can dig yourself out of whatever hole you dug yourself into.

Since you make all the decisions in your startup business, you have no one to blame but yourself.

Messed up when handling a vendor or supplier issue and burned that bridge? It’s on you.

Your team went into a team ill-prepared? You didn’t do a good enough job prepping or coaching them.

Did you make the wrong hire? Your recruitment process needs to be refined to weed out the bad apples.

Did you make a bad call about your pricing strategy? Guess what. It’s you again because regardless of the discussions and brainstorming sessions you have had with your team, you made the final call. No one else is rushing to help you shoulder the blame.

None of this is me being sarcastic, and I am not sharing this to scare off any would-be entrepreneurs. We see enough social media posts from starry-eyed entrepreneurs stating that they wouldn’t know it’s this hard. Or others who are feeling down because they had one bad month with sales. The reality is business is cyclical. You will have good days, bad days, good weeks, bad weeks, and sometimes even good years and bad years.

It’s good to go in with positivity and hope, but maintaining a practical and pragmatic notion of what entrepreneurship entails will help build your resilience and persistence to build a great business. I hope this helps other business owners who are struggling with all of the above issues. You’re not alone, and you’ll get through it.