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In: Operations Management

Charlie Berry, Shelly Toombs, Nancy Harder, James Ndofor, Jennifer Atwood, and Cliff Bell are all experienced...

Charlie Berry, Shelly Toombs, Nancy Harder, James Ndofor, Jennifer Atwood, and Cliff Bell are all experienced software engineers. For some times, they've been talking about starting a company-the six of them- around a software solution in which all of them have an interest. Based on material, what challenges do you anticipate this six people will likely encounter co-founding a firm? Explain your answer.

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Expert Solution

8 challenges :-

1. Abondoning another carrer

if you are going dedicate yourself to starting and nurturing a business to success.it's going to be nearly impossible to simultaneously manage another carrer.you might be able to managethe infacy of your business on the side,during weeknights and weekends, but if you want a chance of growing significantly,invariably, you"ll have to quit your day job.

2. Financing

experienced entrepreneurs don't have it easy when it comes to funding a new business, but they do have a few advantages over newcomers. They might have a pool of capital from a business they previously sold or a steady streamof revenue they can use to fund a new business cash flow

3. Teambuilding

This is especially hard if you’ve never run or managed a team before, but even if you have management experience, picking the right team for a startup is stressful and difficult. It’s not enough to find candidates who fill certain roles -- you also need to consider their cost to the business, their culture fit and how they’ll work as part of your overall team. Such considerations are exceptionally hard when you’re under the pressure of filling those positions as soon as possible.

4. Being the visionary

As the founder of your startup, you’ll be expected to come up with the ideas. When a competitor emerges, it will be your responsibility to come up with a response plan. When your team hits an impenetrable obstacle, your job will be to come up with an alternative plan to move forward.

This demands on-the-spot creative thinking -- which should be an oxymoron, but entrepreneurs rarely have the luxury of time. The less experience you have, the more pressure you’ll feel from this, and the harder time you’ll have coming up with acceptable plans.

5. Dealing with the unknown

How long will your business exist? How profitable will your business be? Will customers like your product? Will you be able to give yourself a steady paycheck? None of these questions has a solid, reliable answer, even in startups based on great ideas with all the resources they’d theoretically need.

That unknown factor means your job stability is going to plummet, and many of your long-term plans will remain in flux as new developments emerge. Dealing with this volatility is one of the hardest parts of emerging as a new entrepreneur.

6. Loneliness

It’s a rarely mentioned problem of entrepreneurship, and many new business owners aren’t prepared for it until it happens. Being an entrepreneur is lonely. It’s a singular position, so you won’t have teammates to rely on (completely). You’ll be working lots of hours, so you won’t see your family as often. And your employees will be forced to remain at a bit of a distance.

7. Rule-making

It’s fun to be the boss until you have to enforce something. Sooner or later, you’ll have to come up with the rules your business follows, from how many vacation days your workers get to what the proper protocol is when filing a complaint about a coworker. These details aren’t fun to create, and they aren’t fun to think about, but they are necessary for every business.

8. Decision-making

Believe it or not, this is probably the most stressful challenge on this list. New entrepreneurs are forced to make hundreds of decisions a day, from big, company-impacting decisions, to tiny, hour-affecting ones. Decision fatigue is a real phenomenon, and most new entrepreneurs will experience it if they aren’t prepared for the new level of stress.

If you can work your way past these major obstacles, you’ll be well on your way to establishing yourself as an entrepreneur. That isn’t to say they won’t continue to nag at you as the years go on, or that new and varied challenges won’t arise to take their place, but you’ll be prepared to handle yourself in those most volatile and impactful first few months -- and that puts you far ahead of the competition.


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