I am guilty, even today, of some expensive mistakes that still make me pay through my nose. There has been an intolerably long and pain-staking, but still priceless learning curve through my entrepreneurial journey. Having been there and done that and looking back at it all now, I wish I knew a few things before I even started out. It could have saved a heart-ache or two. Here are some of them I wish I knew:

1. Starting without overheads: One of the largest chunks of my payouts was for the fancy office and equipment that I had invested in when I first started out. It was pure peer pressure and the sheer weight of expectations that others have on you when you decide to start a business of your own. You got to have a large table in a large air-conditioned room. You got to have an office with 15 computers, an Uninterrupted Power Supply, etc. I realized later that all of these are mindless expenses. I could have saved that money.
2. Finding Business Without Employees: Models Finding competent, committed and professional employees is probably the toughest thing for an entrepreneur. It seems like they just don’t exist. The part of the world where I come from, a job is a joke for many of these young turks who step out of colleges. They think they should ideally get the CEO’s job the moment they graduate. Arrogant idiots. While there are people who are worthy of being employed, they are increasingly difficult to be found.
3. Walk out hand-in-hand with technology: I wish I could use technology a bit more. Use automation probably, or have a way to collect leads using my website. I could have at least collected email addresses from my customers and sent them out emails in a timely and consistent manner so that I could follow-up effectively and professionally. Technology could have helped me better; if only I knew.
4. Not Spend on Traditional Marketing Media: Again, you follow competition when you have to market your business. What is everyone else running similar businesses doing? You do that. How do they market? You follow. Not a very smart strategy, is it? I did just that. Of course, I did think of new ways, but I was forced to spend on advertising and marketing techniques that barely work, just because everyone else was using them.

The power of learning, of right education reflects right here. I wish colleges knew how to make great entrepreneurs.

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