One of the most daunting and challenging step an entrepreneur can face is launching a startup or attempting to build a business/ company from the ground up. Many entrepreneurs have little or no prior experience or exposure to the business world and this often might result to making mistakes that can lead to disaster and failure of these startups.

Personally, I would say I’ve had to learn this the hard way in the past. I’ve had both successes and failures in launching startups and luckily I have been able to learn along the way as well. Below are some of the outlined top 10 mistakes that any startup should avoid at all costs.
Consider to read: 7 Things to Consider Before Starting Your Own Business


#1 - Always start with the customer, not the product. Get your beta group / user group of customers and work with them to deliver what they love. People will pay you to do what they love, not to just do what you love.

#2 - Outsource to experts who manage themselves, not workers who need to be managed. Hire people who let you do more of what you do best, not people who take you away from your talents because they need to be managed.
Also read: 10 Mistakes to Avoid When Naming Your Business
 
#3 - Once opportunities begin to grow, don't get defocused. Anything that doesn't add to your customer's experience isn't worth doing.

#4 - Don't fail by having a great product that no one knows about. Don't rely on someone else to sell your product until you have more sales than you can handle. Don't make sales by closing customers. Create buyers by opening relationships.
 

#5 - More than all of the above, maximize failures that steer you and avoid failures that sink you. Fail passionately and fail often, earning and learning with each failure, so it's you that keeps failing (and learning) and not your company!

#6 – Investors are great especially when you don’t have enough capital to finance your startup, but the questions you should ask yourself is, are they more important than the customer? Your customers should be your main focus.

#7 – Lack of enough money can be detrimental to a business. This is where your business plan comes into play. You have to make sure that you have sufficient money to keep the business afloat for at least six months before it picks up.

#8 - One of the biggest mistakes is spending too much, which may occur when a business owner or founder becomes overly eager and hires a ton of people. At first, the entrepreneur may believe all the new employees are needed. But this will just mean burning through the startup's finances faster. To avoid this, hire those only those truly needed and take staffing up step by step. Without proper management and use of its finances, a new business may never set sail. Be sure that someone good with numbers can help out with this.

#9 – I know just like me, there is a lot of people who don’t like asking for help but I can guarantee that this will lead to failure of your startup. There are many tasks involved in starting a business which can be overwhelming to one person. A little help from friends and professional colleagues can help launching the business and make it a success.

#10 – Lastly, we are living in a digital age and ignoring the social media only hurts you more than it helps. Put your business out there and let the social media platform work for you.

A reading list for you:

• Top 5 Startup Ideas You Can Launch for Less Than $10,000  
• 5 Reasons Many Businesses Fail in the First Year  
• 20 Rules to Becoming a Successful Entrepreneur  
• 10 Productivity Tips For The Overwhelmed Entrepreneurs

"Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.”