In this post I will speak about typical mistakes that you, as a future business owner can make. These mistakes are very common among new business founders. If you take these points into consideration, you will increase your chances of success.

The first mistake is starting your own business without having adequate experience in the relevant field. It is imperative that you gain experience in the field where your business will operate. If you plan to start a software development business, it is important that you work in the industry a year or two. Even if you won't become a professional programmer, having experience in software engineering will help you. The same is true for other industries as well. Under experience I imply not only technical expertise, but knowing key players in the industry, having contacts with key people and so on, well you get the idea.

The second mistake that a business founder can make is to appoint himself/herself as a CEO of the company. Usually new businesses are started by people who are professionals in certain fields. For example, a programmer after working 5 years for a software developer company quits his/her job to start own business. Experience shows that such new businesses have slim chances of surviving and becoming successful. Why is it so? Simply, because being a boss requires additional skills along with the domain knowledge and expertise. Unfortunately, most of the newly founded small businesses does not have enough financial resources to hire professional managers and thus the founders are becoming de facto managers. This point is so important that I'm obliged to bring a an example.

Let's take Google. It is a software giant, a multi-billionaire company, dominant player in the industry. The company was started in a campus room. One of the factors why Googles has become so successful is that its two young founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page hired a professional manager as soon as the company could afford it. The same can be said about Apple. I won't take much of your time by bringing additional examples, there are quite many, both today and in the past.

The third mistake that you can make is to start your own business in order to avoid hard work. Some people are so bored with their jobs that in order to avoid it start new businesses. Such endeavours are usually doomed for failure. If you think that running your own business will save you form working hard, pardon, but you are deeply mistaken. George Eastman, the founder of Kodak would spend nights experimenting prior to founding the company. Successful entrepreneurs work almost 24 hours a day.

The fourth mistake is starting your own business when you are not ready to sacrifice. Spending less time with your family, cutting down on personal expenses, taking risks, being overstressed are a number of things that you may face. If you are not ready to cope with those things, you'd better not start your own business at all.

The fifth mistake is being very optimistic about future. Being too optimistic I would say is dangerous when you run your own business.

The sixths mistake is starting a business without a sound and well thought out business plan. Equally terrible mistake is having a business plan which is put on the shelf covered with an inch thick dust. Business plans are to be followed, reviewed, reworked but not put on the shelves.

Of course, there are many other pitfalls and difficulties, however I've tried to direct your attention to the most important mistakes. Hopefully, these introductory topics are giving you a good idea whether to start your own business or not.