6 Things That All Entrepreneurs Should Stop Worrying About

Worrying Entrepreneurs ExactDrive recently had the opportunity to be interviewed by Onevest.com, who has a mission to reshape the private equity industry by democratizing early stage investing: Connect founders to capital allowing their ideas to transform into successful companies, simultaneously creating new investment opportunities for individual investors.

Being an entrepreneur is an inherently stressful endeavor. Being the entrepreneur behind a newly launched startup is even more stressful, since it means constantly having to balance on the fine line between failure and success. Many of the concerns that one has during this time period are warranted, particularly when it comes to budget, client retention, and simply surviving the competitive startup ecosystem. Other concerns, however, are irrational and can take away from the precious energy needed to successfully run a business.

We spoke with six startup founders at different stages in their careers, and asked them what one thing was that all entrepreneurs should stop worrying about.

1. Competitors

"Keep an eye on them for sure, but don't let what they do dictate what you do too much. Focus on doing what you do best and innovate. If you're watching your competitors too closely, you'll be playing a constant game of catch up that won't do you much good."

Mark Volkmann, Massagebook 2. Success

"Worrying about success is the best way to not succeed. Too much focus on outcomes rather than on getting the job done well is very detrimental. It’s easy to get impatient if you're thinking about results all the time. Even failed experiments teach you so much."

Niraj Rout, Mailflo

3. Micro-Managing

"Stop sticking your nose into every company project. Delegation is a pathway for entrepreneurial success and personal sanity maintenance. Once you get to a certain size you have to trust that your team will execute and implement tasks, ideas and strategies successfully. If not, you will only slow the company’s progress, overall success and productivity."

Tim Nichols, ExactDrive

4. The Perfect Product

"Stop worrying about getting your product out there as quickly as possible. There are a lot of teachings encouraging new entrepreneurs to fail and fail quickly. But that doesn't mean that you should rush to bring something to market. There is something to be said about taking your time to build a good product. Develop your product in stages and design KPI's (key performance indicators) around each chunk to measure your success. Validating your ideas before you bring your product to the mass market is the best thing you can do if you want to build a sustainable business."

Zoey McKenzie, OMNI

5. Criticism

"Every entrepreneur should stop worrying about haters. I see a lot of business owners who are getting hung up on negative reviews and are totally convinced that this is a sign of them doing something wrong. Yes, it might be, and it makes perfect sense to analyse those reviews and make improvements based on any feedback. But entrepreneurs should also keep in mind that no matter how careful they are, there will be haters anyway. Invest in quality product, put emphasis on customer support and positive reviews will outbid the negative ones."

Ksenia Rostova, inSelly

6. Time

"I would suggest that the time is one area where entrepreneurs worry there is never enough! However, with correct task priority and scheduling, time is something which we should all stop worrying about. At the end of the day, there is only a certain amount of hours - efficient use is the only way to meet time constraints head on."

Robert Sturt, MPLS Network Specialist