Beginning as a tech entrepreneur is incredibly challenging. Lots of people start businesses only to abandon them later or to simply have them crash and burn. For that matter, it’s important to remember that many people have great ideas for tech businesses but are not necessarily able to execute them properly. This is often because they make common entrepreneur mistakes.

With that being said, the more you know about some of these common mistakes, the easier it is for you to avoid them. Below, we’re going to explore some of the most common entrepreneur mistakes and what you should do if you want to keep them from befalling you and your business.

1. Bad Pitches

You’ll quickly discover as an entrepreneur that you’ll be pitching your business to people quite often. Most often, your pitches will be aimed at potential investors. You’ll be pitching to investors in order to secure funding for your business. While this can be intimidating, it’s impossible to avoid. Small businesses cannot succeed without funding, and in order to be a successful tech entrepreneur you need to convince investors that your business is worth investing in.

The problem is that this is sometimes a piece of tech entrepreneur advice that small business owners aren’t ready to hear. It’s understandable if you have a fear of presenting to people at first. But a fear of public speaking can be quite devastating for your business prospects. Those who have a fear of public speaking typically make roughly 10% less than those who don’t. Fortunately, a fear of public speaking can be conquered. You just need to take public speaking lessons, ideally from a great public speaker themselves. But if you don’t dedicate yourself to overcoming this fear, it could become a major issue for you and your business.

2. Making Bad Partnerships

When starting a business, you’ll most likely want or need to work with a business partner at some point. Finding a business partner is a good idea. But finding the wrong business partner is one of the most common entrepreneur mistakes that can sink your business remarkably fast.

Perhaps one of the most significant mistakes that an entrepreneur can make is partnering with someone that is too close to them. There is a reason why they say not to mix business with pleasure. Partnering with a friend or family member can mix the personal and the professional too closely, especially if your business partner wants to be heavily involved. Make sure that if you do decide to move forward with this type of partnership, you are clear with your boundaries.

3. Lack of Research

Research is obviously important in general. Entrepreneurs need to know a lot about their business field, their products and services, and much more. But perhaps one of the most deadly and common entrepreneur mistakes is failing to research the competition.

The competition needs to be researched so that you understand how they market and run their businesses, what works for them, and what doesn’t work for them. Another important component of researching your competition is understanding what they’re missing in the market and what gaps your business can fill. Failing to do this is missing a major opportunity as an entrepreneur.

4. Taking Too Long to Launch

While it’s important for you to research the competition and prepare properly when launching your business, there is such a thing as taking too long to do so. Business owners need to be aware of a ticking clock on the freshness of their business idea. This is particularly true if they are launching products or services for which they cannot obtain patents. In that case, it’s all too easy for ideas to be taken and adapted by other entrepreneurs.

Additionally, a business owner’s passion can fade if the business takes too long to launch. You need to strike while the iron is hot and make sure that you’re doing what you need to do to launch your business as soon as possible.

Launching a business is incredibly difficult. But it can also be remarkably rewarding. Do your research and make sure that you’re ready to launch.

Right now, there are a lot of people who are interested in starting a business in the tech field. This is especially true in light of the pandemic, which has a lot of people working from home. Of course, those who are working from home are relying upon technology to do their jobs and even to stay in touch with friends and connect with the outside world. Subsequently, it may be the right time to jump on launching your tech business into the stratosphere.

But how do you do that? For a lot of people, the key is finding the right tech entrepreneur partner to help them take their business from a vision to a reality.

As much as creating a business partnership can be exactly what your business needs to succeed in the long term, it can also cause you to fail if you don’t choose the right business partner. Right now, about 22.5% of all small businesses will fail within their first year. That often happens because tech entrepreneurs trust the wrong partners. And that’s why we’re looking into what you should consider when evaluating potential business partners. Here are just a few questions to ask yourself as you go through this process.

Are They Passionate About Your Business?

If you’re interested in creating a business partnership, chances are that you are the one who started the business and that you’re now looking for someone to help you take it to the next level. Whether you’re interested in a more financial partnership or in taking on a partner who wants to have an active role in the business, you need to find someone who is passionate about your organization. They can take a backseat in the creative process, but they need to believe in what you’re doing and be available to help.

Part of the reason why this matters is that your business partner will likely be involved in making big decisions and recruiting investors. It can be especially difficult for investors to funnel money into your business if they don’t feel like your partner believes in the business as much as you do.

Are They Reliable?

Now, there is such a thing as being too passionate — or having a directionless passion. Some potential business partners are just excited about the rush of signing onto a new business, but they aren’t as interested in seeing it through for the long term. Other partners are also involved in too many other businesses to give yours the attention it deserves. It’s one thing to be involved in a couple of different businesses, but it’s another to be spread so thin that you can’t make good on your commitments.

Successful tech entrepreneurs need to have a lot of focus. They also need to have reliable business partners who can make themselves available and do the work when necessary. A lot of this will depend on the partnership you agree to in the beginning. Some partners will not need to be very present; if you laid this out when creating a business partnership, you’ll have to stick to those terms. But your business partner should be reliable according to the partnership the two of you built. Otherwise, you may end up creating even more work for yourself without the help you actually need.

Are You Compatible?

When creating a business partnership, you’ll discover that it’s much like any other relationship. You need to be compatible with the person with whom you’re working. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the two of you have to be best friends. But you should have the same basic business styles and the same long term goals for your company. Your business partner should have the ability to build a strong relationship — not just with you, but with the other people working on your business. Take the time to get to know your potential partner before leaping into a long-term commitment to ensure compatibility.

Can They Take Risks?

There’s no getting around it: starting a business means taking risks, both personally and financially. If your business partner is not ready to take risks, they may not be the right partner for you. Be upfront about the risks your business will involve. The last thing you want is someone partnering with you and then bailing later. Don’t take it personally if they’re not up to the challenge. Instead, be thankful you found out before you reached an agreement and continue your search.

Finding a good business partner is a lot like finding a life partner. It might take you a long time to find the right one and you’ll need to be selective. But once you find that right person, it can change your life!

We all know that becoming a successful tech entrepreneur can be incredibly difficult. There are a number of obstacles in the way of every entrepreneur, including securing funding, competition from other companies, and simply finding a winning concept for a business. Perhaps one of the greatest challenges an entrepreneur can face, however, is winning support from other business owners and investors.

Very few entrepreneurs run businesses independently for the entirety of their career. An entrepreneur may own the majority of their company’s equity, but they usually will require partners or investors in order to scale up at some point. This is going to require crafting the perfect pitch. For those wondering about how to succeed as a tech entrepreneur, the pitch is perhaps one of the most key components that you will need to master. With that in mind, let’s look into some of the best tips for tech entrepreneurs that want to make the perfect pitch.

1. Take Public Speaking Classes

A lot of pitching is less about the product or service that is being pitched and more about how it is being presented. Yes, you will need a high-quality idea if you’re seeking how to succeed as a tech entrepreneur… but your idea will be no good if you’re pitching it without confidence, charisma, and the ability to explain big concepts in an easy to understand way. This doesn’t come naturally to everyone, and that’s okay.

One of the best tips for entrepreneurs to consider is taking public speaking classes. Public speaking classes help everyone become more confident and natural public speakers, but they are particularly helpful for those that actively face difficulties when public speaking. Roughly three out of four people suffer from speech anxiety, and generally speaking, this is not an issue that simply goes away because people want it to go away. Therefore, it’s vital that issues with speaking are resolved as quickly as possible through high-quality courses.

2. Create an Elevator Speech

You won’t always need to have an elevator speech available when pitching your business idea. At times, you will be allowed more time or even extensive meetings to pitch to investors or potential partners. But when studying how to succeed as a tech entrepreneur, you’ll soon realize that if you can pitch your idea within 30 seconds, you’ll be able to pitch your idea just as well within an hour. However, pitching during the shorter time frame is significantly harder to master.

Your elevator speech should summarize in 30 seconds or less what you do. The goal of the speech should be to make whoever is listening interested enough to ask additional questions. Define why you’re different, and the investors or potential partners would want to work with you.

3. Know Your Audience

The more you know about your audience, the easier it will be for you to craft a pitch that appeals to them specifically. If you’re seeking how to succeed as a tech entrepreneur, you need to understand who you’re pitching to, and why they need you as much as you need them.

Sometimes, entrepreneurs won’t be able to know everything about everyone that they’re pitching to. If you’re pitching at a trade show or convention, you may essentially be pitching to a crowd. But if you research that show or convention, you can get an idea of who will be there and why they’re drawn to that event. One of the most common entrepreneur mistakes is assuming that all investors are solely motivated by return.

4. Present a Documented Plan

Your plan may very well change, but your investors still want to know what that initial plan is, and that you have one. Offer a plan for success for your business, relying on stages to map out how your business, and in turn those investing in it, will be successful.

There are many different keys to being a successful entrepreneur. But the ability to successfully pitch is perhaps one of the most overlooked. Don’t forget that people aren’t just buying into your business. They’re buying into you as well.

Did you know that there are 582 million entrepreneurs across the globe? While this means that those of you who are interested in becoming entrepreneurs have a lot of people to lean on and relate to, it also means that there is a good deal of competition to worry about. It can be difficult to stand out as someone starting a new business in this day and age, especially if that business relates to the tech industry in some way. Tech entrepreneurs have a lot of opportunities that they can take advantage of, but they need to present unique opportunities to potential business partners, employees, and investors in order to be successful.

Part of the issue for tech entrepreneurs is standing out in the sea of other entrepreneurs. In this day and age, much of the conversation regarding tech is, predictably, taking place online. That is why we’re looking into some of the ways that the digital entrepreneur can make themselves stand out on the internet. Yes, there are millions of people vying for the attention of a comparatively small consumer base. But with the right tactics, your business could be the one that becomes most prominent.

1. Start a Blog

Perhaps one of the best way ways for a tech entrepreneur to stand out online is for them to start a tech entrepreneurship blog. This kind of blog can be started at any point in the entrepreneur’s career. You could begin blogging when you first start to conceptualize your business, chronicling your adventures in the early days of becoming an entrepreneur and following its ebbs and flows in a very personal way. Conversely, you could create a very glossy and attractive story for your business through your blog, using it more purely as a kind of branding tool.

Either way, tech entrepreneurship blogs are remarkably flexible and appealing marketing outlets. Not only can they be utilized for SEO purposes, making your business easier to find for consumers; they can also play a part in creating your brand’s story. What is important is that the blog offers entrepreneurs a way to make themselves and their ideas easily available to the public at large.

2. Engage with Social Media

There is a wealth of social media platforms available in this day and age, and one of the best tips for entrepreneurs in general, not just tech entrepreneurs, is to take advantage of them. No matter what area of the tech industry you wish to specialize in, there is a social media platform that will somehow correspond to it. Facebook is often used by families, while Twitter appeals more to a younger and more individualized audience. Instagram is full of influencers and is ideal for more visual businesses.

Similarly to tech entrepreneurship blogs, social media allows a lot of opportunities for branding and creating a voice. It also allows clients and consumers, in general, to feel as if they can easily voice questions and concerns. In a sense, a social media account allows consumers more direct access to businesses and ultimately creates a more personalized experience.

3. Create an Attractive Website

What makes one website appealing where others may not be? This can be a difficult question for entrepreneurs to answer, which is why working with a digital marketing agency can be so helpful for many of them. While a tech entrepreneurship blog can be an aspect of a polished website, it’s only a single part. Websites must also be both attractive and easy to navigate.

There are plenty of other websites that can offer the same resources as yours, no matter how unique the information you focus on seems to be. Therefore, it’s important that your website is not only visually appealing but streamlined and efficient. The only way this can be done is through the utilization of professional web designers and marketers.

While it can be difficult for tech entrepreneurs to stand out in the crowd, it’s not impossible. With the right approach, a tech entrepreneur can build their brand online even before their business launches.