7 sacrifices entrepreneurs have to make to succeed in their startup

September 30, 2016

People have a chimera of becoming an entrepreneur, not always because of interest but more often because of the fame, money and comfort living, that it brings along. But as the adage goes, “Don’t judge a book by its cover”, so is the case with entrepreneurship. Every single thing in this world comes at its own cost. The glamour that a successful startup brings along often disguises the struggles and the sacrifices entrepreneurs make to wind up to that level. Here, I enumerate 7 essential sacrifices entrepreneurs make, to become recognisable, worldwide.

1. Security

One of the most important of all sacrifices entrepreneurs make is that of their job security. In the quest of achieving something big, little things need to be sidelined. Continuing a job while venturing into the startup world is something next to impossible because of the dynamic time constraints. Forfeiting security in a vision towards bigger and better things undoubtedly involves a lot of risk in an entrepreneur’s life as the income will be tight and situations can worsen even to the extent of your survival.

2. Leisure Time

An entrepreneur gets the liberty to decide upon his working hours but that does not reduce the amount of time and effort he needs to insert. Rather an entrepreneur needs to put even more labour to achieve something big. Certainly after a point, they can slow down, but initially hard work is the only key to their success. All that time which used to get wasted in hanging out, chilling, watching T.V. and all such unproductive work needs to be sacrificed at hand. An entrepreneur needs to work harder and longer in order to survive the competition.

Also Read: Why you should become an entrepreneur and why you should not

3. Sleep

Sleep is another important sacrifice that entrepreneurs make. No matter what an entrepreneur does to preserve healthy sleeping pattern, he needs to sacrifice some sleep. If one can cut in some time from sleep, he undoubtedly gets additional hours to work on. It is the future of his company that is always going to bother him every minute. It will be his dream that will wake him up from his sleep. But again, an entrepreneur should not be deprived of the required amount of sleep which otherwise would deter him from working with his full ability. It’s never about sacrificing bulky gob of sleep every night. It’s just the right number of hours that need to be sacrificed. Anything more will not be of any worth.

4. Possessions

If an entrepreneur is struggling to come up with the fund required for his startup, he often needs to make sacrifices of his possessions. He needs to sacrifice his luxurious livelihood for the time and needs to sell off all his possessions, which is not his need of the hour. He may have to sell his car or the air conditioner at his home. An entrepreneur is a person who is ready is live like a miser in the early days of his entrepreneurship. He has a limited monthly income out of which most of the cash gets utilised in his venture which rules out the possibility of blowing cash unnecessarily into luxuries.

Also Read: How is bootstrapping better than fund raising?

5. Social Life

An entrepreneur, who is intending to make his startup “BIG”, understands the pain of detaching himself from the society. His social life gets a little withered. But that does not mean that he will cut off his relation with society completely. That’s never good and there’s no fun in living a life of that kind. But in a plan to be a great businessman, cutting down hours at pub or spending every weekend in some holiday needs to be prevented. In other words, he needs to become more selective about his social life.

6. Reputation

Success and failure stands as a part of every entrepreneur’s life. But often it happens that the past failures of an entrepreneur keep haunting his present life. Despite he does his best to purge the ghosts of negativity, he may end up being cynical and dejected. He may feel lost in the crowd. So it then becomes very important for an entrepreneur to gather courage and believe in himself because in most of the cases, entrepreneurship for the first time is mostly about embracing failure.

7. Comfort

From getting up early to sleeping late in night, working very hard and dedicating himself to the cause is something that might not fall within any one’s comfort zone and is something no one would be expecting. Getting into the habit of living this new lifestyle is somewhat difficult in the beginning. It requires a lot of discipline and perseverance. But a true entrepreneur will never fear to face it all.

Did I miss anything? Tell us your experience!