I wrote before about Entrepreneur fear – now its time to write again. It seems that back in 2005 I have approached the “fear subject” from the perspective of an entrepreneur wanna be that is looking to start a business. Now, almost 3 years later, I feel like writing more about Entrepreneurs’ fear, because I know more about it.
I believe we should in fact talk about 2 types of fear:
- The start-up fear
- The fear to keep it going.
There are plenty of resources on the “start-up fear”. This article on “Entrepreneurs being scared of failure” actually puts some interesting numbers: “Almost four in ten would-be entrepreneurs are too scared of failure to do anything about their business idea”. Director of small business at Orange Business Services, Martin Lyne, says: “It’s not the hard skills holding us back so much as our lack of self confidence and fear of failure”. Back in 2005, I’ve defined the start-up fear as fear of:
- Not having an unique business idea
- Financial insecurity: will I make enough money?
- Fear of trying new things
- Fear of not being up to the standards
Now, after almost 3 years I want to talk about the “fear of keeping it going”. First of all, if you get to this stage, the good news is that you “made it”. Your start-up didn’t failed! But as things get better an better, and everything is growing a new fear will come along. The fear of not losing it. You have some nice customers in your portfolio, probably some money in the bank, few employees to say “hi” in the morning. And if until now, you only feared of not losing some months in your life, and the little start-up investment, as things get bigger the risks actually get bigger. You’re not afraid of loosing that $3.000 customer, you are afraid of not loosing the $30.000 customer. Your not afraid of lacking income for yourself, but you will be afraid for all the employees that will have to get the paycheck at the end of the month.
Not sure about you, but I believe that while the “start-up fear” is bad because it stops you from doing things, the fear of “keeping it going” is a positive thing. It pushes you to move forward, to improve things and make everything better!