21 Common Mistakes of Home Business Startups

What's the biggest mistake you did when you were just starting the business? The ideal situation, of course, is to go through the process of starting a business without a single misstep. Unfortunately, that doesn't always happen. We sometimes trip; or even stumble; or worse, fall flat on our faces.

Discounting complete ineptitude and bad luck, here are some of the common mistakes home business entrepreneurs commit when starting a business:

1. Having no idea where and how to get started
2. Lack of innovative business idea, often mere imitation and not coming from some unresolved problems or unfilled needs
3. Becoming too fixated with the business idea, even if it proves to be unworkable
4. Choosing a very small unprofitable niche
5. Not focusing on the user
6. Easily believing and buying the hype of those "I make $25,000 a month" programs
7. Starting and staying as a one-person business, trying to do everything and failing
8. Not having a clear idea of who the target market is
9. Launching too slow maybe due to excessive perfectionism, lack of understanding of the problem, or working on too many things
10. Launching too fast such as launching a site that is not yet ready
11. Raising too little money
12. Burning through the money without tangible results
13. Having too much money and not knowing what to do with it
14. Failure to manage investors
15. Fighting with other founders or business partners
16. Not wanting to do the dirty work
17. Hiring the wrong people
18. Not marketing the business well
19. Failure to take care of customers or clients
20. Losing control of distribution
21. Putting a half-hearted effort