All too often they let naysayers discourage them, they fail to listen to market demands, and they don't delegate enough.
"There's no way any company will engage you rather than McKinsey," the man scoffed. He looked at me with a mix of contempt and sympathy, the way people often look at beggars, and I would have been smart to heed his warning. After all, he was a senior executive at a big company, had an Ivy League pedigree and was part of the WASP-y country club set. He should know if my business idea was worthy. It could not be done, he concluded, and I should stop before I even started.
Fortunately for me, I've never been good at listening to detractors. I ignored his advice and the criticism of others who said I couldn't open a consulting firm focused on China that charges more than big consulting firms like McKinsey and Bain. Five years later I'm still here, and I'm having a ball every time a company picks us over one of the big firms.
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A lot of people told me I couldn't do what I was setting out to do when I was setting up my third company, the China Market Research Group. I can't even count how many people looked at me like I was a naïve fool. But that didn't stop me. I couldn't let it. All entrepreneurs receive more criticism than kudos when starting out.
A key mistake many entrepreneurs make is letting detractors get them down and discourage them. Entrepreneurship is about disruption, changing the world order and doing things no one else thought possible.
Do you really think anyone told Steve Jobs at Apple ( AAPL -news - people ) that he could beat Microsoft ( MSFT - news -people )? Or that anyone advised Bill Gates to drop out of Harvard to consign typewriters to the trash bin forever? I wonder how many people thought Howard Shultz could make people pay $4 for a cup of coffee at Starbucks ( SBUX - news- people ) when they could buy it for a buck at the corner store. Probably 9 out of 10 would have thought all those people were nuts. Now look who are the billionaires.
Never let the haters, bozos or naysayers stop you as an entrepreneur. You will run into a lot of them. I still do every day. Of course you can't get so arrogant and pig-headed that you stop listening to others and heeding their advice, but you should never get so overwhelmed by doubters that you stop. If starting a company were easy, everyone would do it.
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Use your haters as motivation to work harder to prove them wrong. I do.
The second key mistake entrepreneurs make is not listening to market demands enough to make sure their product is financially feasible and properly positioned. Entrepreneurs often think they have an idea that will change the world, and that's all they need. It is not. You have to make money too. Take a look at the Segway. It is a brilliant invention, but aside from use in airports and logistics areas, it has no wide appeal. Few people buy it.
You need to make sure someone will actually buy your products and services and that you position your brand properly. To do this, you need to listen to the needs of the market. After my recent column "Three Big Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make When Starting Businesses" appeared, I received tons of e-mails asking how I had decided how to position my firm and what services to offer.
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