My first year as an entrepreneur taught me that the things I knew that were right are actually WRONG.
By: Ryan Llamoso
Tags: Entrepreneurship, Philippines, Startup, Young Entrepreneur, Entrepreneur

Here are the 4 things about entrepreneurship that I thought were right but are actually wrong:

Entrepreneurs control their time

Rhedd Malavega at Mt. Balingkilat going to Nagsasa Cove | February 2020

People thought that entrepreneurs have a lot of time in their hands. One of the reasons why I wanted to become an entrepreneur is having the freedom to control my time so I could travel more, take breaks anytime I want and have a flexible working schedule. At least that’s what most people I know said, “start your own business so you can control your time.” This is not what really happens, especially when you’re in the starting stage, because once you’ve started working on your business you ended up working 2x more hours in a week than your average time in your normal job.

There are times where you need to stay awake for 48 hours just to finish a single task. Sacrificing personal and family time is inevitable for an entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurs need a lot of cash

Patrick Llamoso holding check from DICT Prototype Funding | February 2020

Money should not be the most important thing for an entrepreneur. When I started, I thought of raising huge amount of capital for my startup. In fact, the only money I got was from my sister, she gave us 100k capital for Rentalbee. My savings from my previous job also helped me to survive without salary. However, there will come a time where money will run out, so you need to be more resourceful and creative. After all, there are lots of resources and tools that are actually cheaper nowadays.

Also, remember the saying “your network is your net worth”? It’s true! If you have a vast network and connections from people in your industry, you will find out that you have lots of resources accessible when you need it.

Entrepreneurs should do it all

Photo of Mark Kooijman at North Mongolia | February 2020

One of the wrong things every entrepreneur is doing is when they do everything alone. I’ve almost do every single thing at Rentalbee when we’re starting. I’ve been the programmer, designer, sales, HR, you name it, I’ve worn more than 5 hats in my company when we were still small. It’s impossible not to do these things, especially when you don’t have enough capital to hire people. But as the company grows, you will need other people to do some of the works because you need to focus on executing the bigger goals and delegate some of the nitty gritty works.

As an entrepreneur, it’s important that you let other people help you in executing your dreams, the saying “if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together”, is the best example here. However, it’s not just enough to recruit people, you need to train them and trust them that they will do their work better than you do.

Entrepreneurs know everything

Photo of Team Rentalbee at 1318 Beestro | February 2020

There is one thing every entrepreneur should learn, and that is to unlearn everything. I have thought that being an entrepreneur you should always think 10x ahead of others, so you must know more than your competitors or anyone in your industry. Finding out that your ideas are bad and your business plans are unrealistic is really hard to accept, especially if you have think about it for a long time. So being able to humble yourself to accept the fact that what you know is not always right is a challenge that entrepreneurs should overcome.

As an entrepreneur you must listen to others, seek advice from other people and listen to the feedback of your customers. In order to create a lasting and sustainable business you need to unlearn everything you know, because not all ideas in your business plan will be realized. You will be surprised when you find out that the best ideas for your business will come not from you, but from other people.