What Must an Entrepreneur Assume When Starting a Business?

Entrepreneurs choose to create and operate their own businesses, forging a unique path. For one, they’re stepping outside the structure of traditional employment. What’s more, every business is different, so every business owner faces highly individual journeys, challenges, and wins in their quest for success.

That’s why it’s hard to get a straight answer about what to expect of entrepreneurship. But valuable insights can come from the lived experiences of successful entrepreneurs—like Becca Millstein, cofounder and CEO of premium tinned seafood company Fishwife.

Becca shares some critical assumptions entrepreneurs can make to give their businesses the best shot at success. Understanding them ahead of time can lessen the unpredictability of your path and make life as a business owner feel a bit smoother.

What must an entrepreneur assume when starting a business?

• It’s hard work
• Success is neither overnight nor guaranteed
• You must believe in your company’s need to exist
• There is no straightforward path
• Challenges are the rule
• A support system is essential

Ask any entrepreneur what you can expect when starting a business and you’ll get varied answers. However, there are a few key assumptions that make everyone’s list:

It’s hard work

Transforming an idea into a flourishing business venture often includes long work days and working weekends and holidays. You’ll need to wear many hats, acting as your head of product, marketing, operations, finance, and human resources (if you have employees). Your tasks could include everything from validating demand for your product to creating a website, laying out your marketing strategy, finding suppliers, building prototypes, and hiring employees.

You might have to work especially hard leading up to your brand launch, though many founders discover that, even after being in business for years, they still have to work as hard as they did on day one. “There is no doubt you have to work extremely, extremely long hours,” Becca says. “I’m more than three years into this journey, and I usually work six days a week—and most days are 12 hours if not more. I know founders who work all seven days a week.”

Long hours can come at a cost to your personal life. Becca, for example, sees her fiancé only about twice during the week. Setting boundaries, like ending your day by 5 p.m. once a week to see friends and family, can help you preserve your work-life balance. But hard work and long hours are the reality—and essential—for most entrepreneurs.

Success is neither overnight nor guaranteed

Overnight success in a startup business is a myth that persists because people only see the result of the journey—not all the years of heavy lifting leading up to it, Becca says.

“Even for a successful business, this is often a 10- or 15-year journey,” Becca says. “I say to people all the time when they ask for advice as a founder: ’Do you want to do this for the next 15 years?’ If you don’t, you might want to reconsider.”

You’ll need to maintain your stamina for hard work, long hours, and dealing with setbacks. This is where knowing your passion and clarifying your appetite for risks and challenges comes into play. Entrepreneurship and risk-taking go hand in hand, so it’s crucial to be emotionally—and financially—prepared for this reality. Readying yourself to face the mental hurdles of entrepreneurship can help you achieve success in your new business for years to come.

You must believe in your company’s need to exist

Entrepreneurs often hear about how much they need passion, drive, and confidence in themselves. But Becca believes those stem from your belief that your company needs to exist.

“For me, that’s 100% where the passion and drive comes from. You have to believe that your company deserves to exist,” Becca says. “And if you really believe in the company, you will find the belief in yourself.”

Becca sees this as an inflection point where some founders stop working on their companies: They’ve developed an idea for a product and may even have a solid business plan, but they don’t have the confidence that it’s essential for the company to exist. By contrast, founders who truly believe in their brilliant business idea will find that passion is infectious—it spreads to potential customers, employees, and other stakeholders.

There is no straightforward path

When you become an entrepreneur, you are stepping off of the traditional career path with its often linear trajectory. That can be scary and risky, but it also opens up unlimited possibilities.

Conventional jobs are far more predictable. They often come with the stability of a biweekly paycheck and the comfort of a growth path for your career. And yet that stability can hem you in, as you’re beholden to someone else’s company, vision, and promotion structure.

Entrepreneurship, by contrast, can be anything you desire: a side hustle, one of several income streams, or your sole focus. Your dreams are your own, and no one can limit them. You define your own metrics of success.

“By far my favorite thing about entrepreneurship is the feeling of limitless potential,” Becca says. “I have the ability, autonomy, and power to bring any of my dreams to life—and now that’s a core value at my company too.”

Challenges are the rule

Entrepreneurship is not a single challenge, but a series of many. One week, a supplier may fail to deliver an important shipment; the next, a new employee may quit. Even for successful entrepreneurs, challenges are the rule—not the exception.

You can’t predict everything, but you can predict that failures will happen, and may even present a learning opportunity. When you enter into entrepreneurship with that mindset, failure may not feel as scary. It’s an expected part of the process—not a sign that you’ve made the wrong decision.

“It’s something we talk about on my team a lot: It is really hard, but if you can expect and embrace that it’s supposed to be this way, the hard feels easier,” Becca says.

A support system is essential

Forging your own path can be exhilarating yet solitary. Long hours cut into your social life. Peers in traditional jobs may not relate. The weight of the world, or at least your company, may feel like it’s resting squarely on your shoulders.

If you’re not careful, it can be easy to fall into isolation. You may need to actively reach out to find new ways of accessing support: finding acofounder, seeing a therapist or coach, carving out time to see friends, networking with fellow entrepreneurs, calling family members every week, and seeking professional mentors and resources. A strong foundation of support can go a long way in creating successful founders.

“I hear a lot of people say that entrepreneurship is a very lonely road, but I haven’t found that to be the case—and I think that’s for two reasons,” Becca says. “One, I can totally confide in my senior leadership team at the company, and I feel that they’re really in this with me. Two, I’ve met founder peers who have become friends I talk to every single day via text. We discuss things constantly, and I really feel the support.”