Becoming an entrepreneur is certainly not for everyone. It’s a process that often takes long hours, years of effort, and a complete lack of recognition to be successful. Many fail for various reasons and give up, especially due to a lack of money.

Statistics demonstrate that well over 50% of all businesses collapse in the United States after only 5 years of operation. Furthermore, up to 40% of startups fail due to a bad fit, followed closely behind by 38% from a lack of involvement and time.

Running a business and staying in control of the way you spend time is power only few will ever achieve. Of course, it’s challenging, and failure will find its way to you eventually. This doesn’t mean you have to give up; it simply means you will face obstacles along the way designed to teach you important lessons.

You are likely to fail up to 3 times in a row, yet the 4th could be your greatest success story. Many impresarios have their first companies fail on a grand scale, with others leaving them in potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

To succeed, you must keep solving problems with new, creative products. For these driven individuals, there is simply no other option, as they could not imagine life without total control. If facing failure without a guarantee of success induces fear into your mind, you’re likely not the right person for entrepreneurship.

Below are several indications it’s time to quit starting your own business.

You enjoy remaining in your comfort zone

There is no “standard” day of work in entrepreneurship. You can spend an entire day coding, writing, or designing your product, and the next could be guests hosting a podcast, interviewing employees, or fielding calls. 

Introverts may find the first day much more appealing, but as an entrepreneur, you must put yourself out there and adapt to feeling uncomfortable. If you cannot look back and recall the last time you made a risky decision, entrepreneurship is not for you. 

For example, when starting her fashion business, Vera Wang took a massive risk that was far beyond her comfort zone. When she failed to qualify for the United States Olympic team in 1968, she realized that she would have to pivot herself and her career to something else. At the time, she was working for Ralph Lauren, but she soon discovered her real passion.

She did not like the dresses she was picking from for her wedding and believed there should be more options that were fashion-forward. In response, she created her own. 

By hiring a seamstress to develop her sketch for $10,000, she took a massive risk that paid itself off. Today, Vera Wang is known for her innovative style. None of this would have been possible if she did not take that first big step.

You believe the path to money is quick

There is no slower way to earn money than to become an entrepreneur. You could do work for years at a time without a single check. This is what happens to most people, and those who fail to see instant results give up too early.

The process of successful entrepreneurship can be summarized in a few sentences, but it does not convey how long the process truly takes. Not only are results significantly delayed, but the time spent in-between is all-consuming. You will find yourself working well over 8 hours per day, leaving barely any time for other opportunities to generate income, like a typical job. 

There are plenty of successful impresarios who have managed to work on their business and hold down a full-time position. But it’s not the standard affair. Although you can start a blog or some other type of online business that manages to generate income in less than a year, it takes most much more time.

You need to be starting with the mindset that your business is a project you can see yourself working on 5 years from now. Unfortunately, life has no guarantees, and treating a business as a get-rich-quick opportunity will result in complete failure.

You procrastinate

Failure to effectively manage your time means that you will suffer as an entrepreneur. When working for yourself, you will have no one to monitor your time card or look over your shoulder to ensure that you are working hard. If you feel as if you are not getting anywhere, you must prioritize tasks and take a big step back for reevaluation.

Check out our article on 10 Steps To Follow For Entrepreneur Goal Setting.

Tasks fall into four different categories. 

• Urgent tasks are things that simply cannot wait. This includes new client quotes, voicemail returns, or hitting a deadline for publication on your blog. 
• Important tasks are essential but won’t result in damage if you don’t do them right away. This could mean making updates to social media accounts or returning routine emails.
• Unimportant but urgent tasks are items that could be easily delegated to other people, like ordering new office supplies or renewing your company license.
• Unimportant and non-urgent tasks should be avoided entirely. An example of this kind of task can be exploring new business ideas. While it is not a bad course of action, it won’t help your main hustle.

Multitasking is not an effective strategy, contrary to popular belief. What’s worse, a lack of focus has been projected to cost the global economy almost half a trillion dollars per year. On average, people will spend just only a minute on tasks prior to getting distracted. What’s more surprising is the fact that it takes nearly half an hour for them to get back on track after such distractions. Statistics regarding multitasking have even gone as far as to show that it can temporarily reduce your IQ.

Those who multitask take nearly 50% more time to complete tasks, making up to 50% in additional errors than those who focus on one thing at a time.

If that isn’t enough to motivate you to give your primary hustle undivided attention, perhaps nothing will.

You do not know how to create a marketing strategy

Learning and understanding marketing takes a significant amount of time. Even if you were to delegate the tasks over to experts belonging to a separate agency, they would often fail to get results. This usually results in the entrepreneur having to learn everything themselves.

When starting off, all the hats need to be worn solely by the entrepreneur. You must act as the jack-of-all trades as CEO, customer service agents, finance officer, and marketing department together. No matter the quality of your product or service, failing to put it in the eyes of those who may be interested means no income.

Target Audience

But what do you need to include in a successful marketing strategy? The biggest element is the target audience. You will not know what product to build or sell if you do not know who wants or needs it. 

Therefore, you must think about your ideal customer or the person you are creating a solution for. Jot down notes about everything you understand about them. This could include their age, the kind of job they have, salary, pain points, and the ways in which a product helps them.

Value Proposition

Understanding the value of your product or service is precisely what makes you worth purchasing from and what sets your company apart from competitors. A sufficient value proposition will include the benefit of your product without being too aggressive. One particular example includes Uber, whose company focus is on a simple mission: “easiest way around.”

Without insulting public transit or traditional taxi services, they simply explain it clearly and how it fits seamlessly into your day. Most people love Uber, and they often use it in comparison to renting their own car.

Sales and marketing goals

Having proper goals for your marketing is critical to a company’s long-term success. By writing down your goals and projecting a path to achieving them, you are 50% more likely to succeed. For instance, if you are creating a brand new software program, the goal could mean getting as many users as possible.

Start by asking yourself how many quarterly users you want, and maybe go on to ask how many by the end of the year.

You cannot find problems that need solving

Consider your daily life. Are you able to look at yourself and the world and consider a new product that could make life more efficient and easier? Perhaps you desire an automated dispenser for the grocery store with its thin bags that take eons to wiggle open. Or maybe you could invest in a way to create an application that maps out products in every aisle without having to walk down each.

You will never be able to add value to others’ lives if you cannot even come up with a single thing to improve on your own. Entrepreneurship means designing creative and innovative solutions to problems by putting something new out. The idea could arise out of the blue or come from years of experience, but you must have the idea.

The majority of startup founders first thought up their ideas by seeing firsthand many issues plaguing companies in their industry. Up to 19% of founders ended up investing in something they desired to see in the world. Furthermore, 11% of founders ended up investing in copies of other businesses but improved something that was lacking.

Regardless of the category that your business falls under, you must figure out how to attract the right customers. This means discovering what problems people have and finding a way to solve them. Not being able to do this means inevitable failure as an entrepreneur.

You have plans but take no action

Just because you have a plan for a business doesn’t mean you have a business or have the right to call yourself an entrepreneur. Many fitness aficionados plan their weekly meals, but unless they prepare them, they won’t be following a diet.

People fear failure when starting a business. Nearly 40% of all individuals who even consider entrepreneurship are afraid of having everything fall apart, according to the European Union.

Of the various failures that could occur, the most understandable and mutually shared is financial. Many impresarios lose their entire net worth prior to becoming successful.

Believe it or not, the fear of loss of personal freedom was also discovered to be a top fear. In the early stages of growing an enterprise, you are pressed for time and won’t be able to spend it with family and friends in the same way. Becoming an entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart, nor is it for those who fear failure.

You can make the proper plans to start a business yet still take action every day to get there. Perhaps you need funding for a location for a physical store. While this is happening, you can still go out, research the products you plan to carry, apply for licensing, and set up supplier relationships.

If all you are working on is a to-do list, such items will never get done.

Check out our article on Entrepreneur vs. Self-Employed.

You are a people-pleaser

Entrepreneurship demands a calculated mind that is willing to fight for ideas and fire people that don’t get the job done. Scientific studies found that the more antisocial personalities were more likely to not only become entrepreneurs but to be successful as their persuasive abilities are superior to the average individual.

Part of successfully persuading means convincing others you are right when they think otherwise. If you’re the type of individual who detests confrontation, you won’t succeed as an entrepreneur. This doesn’t mean using intimidation or yelling, but you must not operate with concern for how others think of you when delivering harsh feedback or letting someone go.

Yet still, good leads tell the truth to their employees even when the news is not good. It’s your job to ensure employees feel as though they have a backup plan if trouble in the company arises. This means being comfortable with acting quickly and making tough decisions.