Let’s explore the different kinds of adversity you might face when starting up your own business and analyze how you can overcome it.

1. How Adversity Can Affect Your Startup
By David Kiger Image courtesy of Michael_P at Flickr.com

2. Everyone knows opening a business is not easy and it will take
patience, resilience and the capacity to deal with adversity and
failure. As an entrepreneur, you usually know that the path is not
going to be easy, but you take it anyway. Understanding this and
recognizing that you will be in the capacity to face adversity
when it comes knocking will make all the difference whether your
business will make it. There are a variety of ways you can face
adversity either as an individual, as an entrepreneur and as an
up and coming business. If you are able to identify beforehand
the different types of adversity you might face on the road of
entrepreneurship, you may be better equipped to overcome it
when the time comes. Every problem does have a solution, which
you can read more about on the David Kiger SlideShare page, so
rest assured that although it may seem as though everything is
over at times you can actually prepare to overcome adversity
before it arrives. Let’s explore the different kinds of adversity you
might face when starting up your own business and analyze how
you can overcome it.

3. As an individual
At the core of any business venture there is still a human
being that is also simply living life and could at any time
come by adversity on a very personal basis. These
situations could easily put at risk the future of your startup,
if you are not prepared to overcome the challenges.
Entrepreneurs, like any other person, can suffer from
mental, emotional, social, spiritual, or financial adversity.
Any one of these can cause priorities to shift and to bring a
stop to a new or growing business. It will be important for
the person to decide what the current priority is when
facing difficult life obstacles.

4. As an entrepreneur
Being an entrepreneur the first you need to realize is that
you are not on your own. To build a business you will need a
community that can support you and lift you up in times of
need. As an entrepreneur you are in store for your fair share
of obstacles, but overcoming them will make the difference
when becoming a true leader and entrepreneur. One of the
biggest obstacle you can face as an entrepreneur is the
lack of confidence. In the position of leadership in a
company, confidence should be a key factor in the stability
and growth of the company as a driving force. When this is
not present, you need to find a way to regain it and lead by
example with confidence.

5. A weak support network could also be a big issue, since this
is an essential part of building a company. As an individual,
you can easily fall into bad times, but part of being an
entrepreneur is being part of something you are building.
Your startup should have a strong support system and if it
doesn’t then this is something to make sure you have
before adversity strikes. When talking about a strong
support system, this also includes the team you work with.
For example, don’t wait for a legal situation to hit, be
prepared even if you’ll never need one. Not having a great
attorney or not being prepared for the different crisis that
could come upon your company, could be the end of it. At
the same time, just as you would prepare for a legal
situation that may well never come, you also need to save
up for a rainy day.

6. Understanding that you never know what may happen is
the first rule. Finally, as an entrepreneur one of the biggest
things you’ll need to overcome is the ability to
compartmentalize personal situations and business ones.
When feelings and situations start to spill over it can be the
end of your company, so overcoming personal issues
without them affecting your business is also something
worth preparing for. Surviving difficult situations, and not
allowing them to bring your business down will also be a
lesson in itself and a reminder that it is possible to keep
pushing forward.

7. As a small business
As a business you may also run into adversity. One of the
most common setbacks could be not having enough
diversity in your portfolio. When you focus too much on just
one product or service and forget to cater to other market
needs, you may find yourself lacking in diversity and not
having enough customers to keep your doors open.
Another huge issue will be getting ahead of yourself,
especially while seeking venture funding. If you being to
open the doors to venture funding too soon, it may sink you
instead of bring you afloat. Additionally, some business will
build on their current state but will not keep in mind the
scalability of the business, and when you want to grow it
becomes almost impossible to do so.