You know what nobody tells you about starting a business?

The first year is brutal. Not because building a business is impossibly difficult, but because new entrepreneurs make the same devastating mistakes over and over again—mistakes that could easily be avoided if someone just warned them in advance.

I’ve watched hundreds of new entrepreneurs launch their businesses with excitement and optimism, only to struggle, stress, and eventually quit within their first year. And here’s the frustrating part: most of them didn’t fail because their business idea was bad. They failed because they made predictable, avoidable mistakes that killed their business before it had a chance to succeed.

The truth is that entrepreneurship has a learning curve, and that curve is steep. But you don’t have to learn every lesson the hard way. You don’t have to make every mistake yourself before you figure out what works.

I’m going to share the 10 most deadly mistakes new entrepreneurs make in their first year—mistakes that can destroy your business, drain your capital, and leave you wondering why you ever thought starting a business was a good idea.

These are not small mistakes. These are business-killing errors that separate the entrepreneurs who make it past year one from those who don’t. Pay attention to every single one of them because avoiding even one of these mistakes could be the difference between success and failure.

Mistake 1: Starting a Business Without Validating Demand First

This is the number one mistake that kills more new businesses than anything else on this list.

New entrepreneurs fall in love with their business idea. They think it’s brilliant. They convince themselves that people will definitely pay for it. So they invest months of time and thousands of naira building their product or service before they ever talk to a single potential customer.

Then they launch. And nobody buys. Or maybe a few people buy out of pity, but there’s no real demand. The entrepreneur is shocked and devastated. They can’t understand why people don’t want what they’re selling.

Here’s the brutal truth: what you think people want and what they actually want are often completely different things. Your assumptions about your market are probably wrong. Your ideas about what features or benefits matter most are probably off base.

But new entrepreneurs skip the validation phase because they’re excited. They want to start building immediately. They don’t want to “waste time” talking to potential customers or testing their concept. They just want to create and launch.

This is how you end up with a beautifully designed product or perfectly executed service that nobody wants to buy.

Why This Destroys Businesses

When you build before you validate, you waste time and money creating something that the market doesn’t need. By the time you realize there’s no demand, you’ve already depleted your capital and your motivation.

You should validate demand before you build anything substantial. Talk to potential customers. Find out what problems they’re desperately trying to solve. Discover what they’re already spending money on. Test whether they’ll actually pay for your solution before you invest heavily in creating it.

Validation doesn’t mean asking your friends and family if they think your idea is good. They’ll lie to you because they don’t want to hurt your feelings. Validation means finding strangers who fit your target market and getting them to give you money or commit to buying before you fully build your offering.

If you can’t get people to express genuine interest and willingness to pay during the validation phase, you definitely won’t get them to buy after you launch.

Mistake 2: Trying to Serve Everyone Instead of Focusing on a Specific Niche

New entrepreneurs are terrified of limiting their market. They think that focusing on a specific niche means missing out on customers. So they try to appeal to everyone.

They create vague marketing messages that don’t speak powerfully to anyone. They offer services that are so broad that they don’t stand out from competitors. They refuse to get specific about who they serve because they don’t want to exclude potential customers.

This seems logical, but it’s actually business suicide.

When you try to serve everyone, you end up serving no one effectively. Your marketing doesn’t resonate because it’s too generic. Your positioning is unclear because you’re not solving a specific problem for a specific group. Potential customers can’t figure out if you’re the right solution for them because you’re trying to be the right solution for everybody.

I’ve watched new entrepreneurs struggle for months because their target market is “anyone who needs [their service]” or “everyone who wants [their product].” These businesses never gain traction because they never become the obvious choice for any particular group of customers.

Why This Destroys Businesses

Generic businesses get generic results. When you don’t stand for something specific, you don’t stand out at all. Customers choose specialists over generalists every single time when they’re making important purchasing decisions.

You should pick a specific niche—a clearly defined group of people with a specific problem—and become the absolute best solution for that group. Make your marketing speak directly to them. Make your offering solve their specific pain points better than anyone else.

Yes, this means saying no to some potential customers. Yes, this feels risky when you’re just starting and need every customer you can get. But I’m telling you from experience: you’ll make more money faster by dominating a small niche than by being mediocre to everyone.

Once you own a niche, you can expand. But trying to serve everyone from day one means you’ll never dominate anything, and businesses that don’t dominate anything struggle to survive.

Mistake 3: Underpricing to Attract Customers

Almost every new entrepreneur makes this mistake, and it nearly always backfires.

You’re nervous about whether people will buy from you. You lack confidence in your value. You’re competing with established businesses. So you decide to charge less than your competitors. You think that lower prices will make it easier to get customers.

You charge N20,000 for something that should cost N50,000. You offer discounts constantly. You undervalue your work because you want to seem like a “good deal.” You race to the bottom on price, thinking this is how you’ll build your business.

This strategy destroys your business in multiple ways.

First, you attract the worst customers—people who only care about price, who will leave you the moment they find someone cheaper, who will demand more and complain constantly. These customers are exhausting to work with and never become loyal.

Second, you train the market to see your offering as low-value. When you charge low prices, people assume you deliver low quality. They don’t think “This is a great deal.” They think “There must be something wrong with this.”

Third, you can’t sustain your business. You end up working twice as hard as you should because you need twice as many customers to generate the same revenue. You burn out quickly, and you don’t have enough profit to reinvest in growing your business.

Why This Destroys Businesses

Underpricing is not a competitive advantage—it’s a death sentence. You cannot build a sustainable, profitable business by being the cheapest option.

You should charge what your value is worth, even when it feels uncomfortable. Price yourself based on the results you deliver and the problems you solve, not based on what you think people will pay or what you feel confident charging.

High prices actually attract better customers—people who value quality, who understand the investment, who are serious about getting results. These are the customers who will appreciate your work, pay on time, refer others to you, and stick with you long-term.

If you’re not confident enough to charge appropriate prices, work on your confidence and your value proposition. Don’t solve that problem by charging less. Solve it by getting better at communicating and delivering value.

Mistake 4: Spending Money on the Wrong Things

New entrepreneurs waste money on things that don’t matter while neglecting the things that actually grow their business.

They spend thousands on fancy websites when a simple one would work fine. They invest in expensive office spaces when they could work from home. They buy premium software subscriptions they don’t need. They pay for professional logo designs and branding packages before they have any customers.

They spend money to look like a successful business before they are a successful business.

Meanwhile, they refuse to spend money on the things that actually generate revenue—advertising, sales training, hiring help for income-generating activities, or tools that directly support customer acquisition.

I’ve seen entrepreneurs spend N500,000 on office furniture and equipment but refuse to spend N50,000 on Facebook ads because “advertising is too expensive.” This backwards thinking keeps them broke.

Why This Destroys Businesses

Cash flow is the lifeblood of new businesses. When you waste your limited capital on things that don’t generate revenue, you run out of money before you build momentum.

You should spend money on only two types of things in your first year: things that directly generate revenue, and bare essentials you absolutely cannot operate without.

Does a fancy website generate revenue? No. Does a professionally designed logo bring in customers? No. Does expensive office space make you money? No.

Does marketing that reaches potential customers generate revenue? Yes. Does hiring a salesperson who can close deals make you money? Yes. Does investing in learning how to sell effectively bring in customers? Yes.

Every spending decision should pass this simple test: Will this directly help me get more customers or generate more revenue in the next 30-60 days? If the answer is no, you should not spend money on it in your first year.

Save the fancy office and the premium branding for year two or three when you actually have the revenue to afford them. In year one, be ruthlessly practical about where your money goes.

Mistake 5: Doing Everything Yourself Instead of Getting Help

New entrepreneurs wear this like a badge of honor: “I’m doing everything myself. I’m the CEO, the salesperson, the accountant, the customer service rep, the marketer, and the delivery person.”

They think this makes them hardworking and resourceful. In reality, it makes them slow, stressed, and stuck.

You cannot build a significant business by doing everything yourself. It’s impossible. There are not enough hours in the day, and you’re not equally good at all aspects of running a business.

But new entrepreneurs resist getting help for several reasons. They don’t want to spend money on hiring. They don’t trust anyone else to do things as well as they would. They think they’re saving money by doing everything themselves.

What they don’t realize is that doing everything yourself is the most expensive decision you can make. Every hour you spend on low-value activities is an hour you’re not spending on high-value activities that actually grow your business.

Why This Destroys Businesses

When you do everything yourself, you become the bottleneck in your business. You can only grow as much as your personal capacity allows, which isn’t very much.

You should focus your time on the activities that generate the most value—usually sales, strategy, and relationship building. Everything else should be delegated, automated, or eliminated as soon as financially possible.

I’m not saying you should immediately hire a team of employees. That’s not realistic for most new businesses. But you should get help through freelancers, virtual assistants, contractors, or automation tools for tasks that don’t require your personal expertise.

If you’re spending your evenings doing bookkeeping when you could pay a bookkeeper N15,000 monthly to handle it, you’re making a terrible business decision. Those evenings should be spent on sales calls, building partnerships, or creating strategies that generate revenue.

Your time is your most valuable business asset. Protect it ferociously. Get help with everything that someone else can do reasonably well so you can focus on the things only you can do.

Mistake 6: Neglecting Marketing Until You’re Desperate for Customers

This is one of the most common and most damaging mistakes new entrepreneurs make.

They launch their business, wait for customers to somehow find them, and only start marketing aggressively when they’re desperate because no one is buying.

This creates a feast-or-famine cycle. They have no customers, so they panic and do intense marketing. They land a few clients. They get busy delivering the work. They stop marketing because they’re too busy. They finish the work. Suddenly they have no clients again and need to start the panic-marketing cycle over.

This pattern keeps them perpetually stressed and prevents them from ever building real momentum.

New entrepreneurs neglect marketing for several reasons. They don’t know how to market effectively. They think their product or service is so good that it will sell itself. They’re uncomfortable with self-promotion. Or they’re just focused on building and delivering rather than promoting.

But here’s the reality: nobody will know about your business if you don’t tell them. No matter how good your offering is, it won’t sell itself. Marketing is not optional—it’s essential.

Why This Destroys Businesses

Without consistent marketing, you don’t have consistent revenue. Without consistent revenue, you can’t build a sustainable business. It’s that simple.

You should be marketing every single day, even when you’re busy with clients. Especially when you’re busy with clients. Marketing is not something you do only when you need customers—it’s something you do constantly to ensure you always have customers.

Set aside time every day for marketing activities. This could be posting on social media, reaching out to potential clients, networking, creating content, running ads, following up with leads—whatever marketing channels work for your business.

The goal is to build a pipeline of potential customers so that when you finish working with current clients, you immediately have new clients ready to start. This eliminates the feast-or-famine cycle and creates the stability you need to grow.

Marketing is not about being pushy or salesy. It’s about making sure the people who need what you offer know that you exist and can help them. If you’re providing real value, marketing is a service, not a burden.

Mistake 7: Not Tracking Numbers and Operating on Feelings

New entrepreneurs run their businesses based on how they feel rather than what the numbers say.

They feel like they’re doing well because they’re busy. They feel like they’re making progress because they’re working hard. They feel like their marketing is working because they’re getting some engagement on social media.

But when you actually look at the numbers, you discover that being busy doesn’t mean being profitable. Working hard doesn’t mean growing revenue. Social media engagement doesn’t mean sales.

I’ve watched entrepreneurs work 80-hour weeks and feel productive, only to discover at the end of the year that they made less money than they would have earned at a regular job—and they have no idea where they went wrong because they never tracked anything.

They don’t know their profit margins. They don’t know their customer acquisition costs. They don’t know which marketing channels actually generate revenue. They don’t track how much time they spend on different activities. They’re flying blind.

Why This Destroys Businesses

You cannot improve what you don’t measure. If you don’t track your numbers, you can’t identify what’s working and what’s not. You make decisions based on feelings and assumptions rather than data and facts.

You should track the key numbers in your business from day one. At minimum, you need to know:

• How much revenue you’re generating each month
• How much profit you’re actually keeping after expenses
• Where your customers are coming from
• What it costs to acquire a customer
• How much the average customer spends with you
• Your monthly expenses broken down by category

These numbers tell you the truth about your business. They show you whether you’re actually profitable or just busy. They reveal which marketing efforts are worth continuing and which are wasting money. They highlight problems before they become catastrophic.

You don’t need complex accounting systems or expensive software. A simple spreadsheet where you track income, expenses, and key metrics is enough when you’re starting.

Review your numbers weekly. Look at the trends. Make decisions based on what the numbers show you, not on what you feel or hope is happening.

Mistake 8: Ignoring Existing Customers While Chasing New Ones

New entrepreneurs are obsessed with getting new customers. They focus all their energy on acquisition and ignore the customers they already have.

They deliver the service or product, collect payment, and immediately move on to finding the next customer. They never follow up. They never ask for feedback. They never try to sell anything else to existing customers. They treat every customer like a one-time transaction.

This is incredibly expensive and inefficient.

Acquiring a new customer costs significantly more than selling to an existing customer. Existing customers already know you, trust you, and have experienced your value. They’re the easiest people to sell to, yet new entrepreneurs ignore them while spending all their energy chasing strangers.

Additionally, satisfied existing customers are your best source of referrals. They can introduce you to other potential customers who will trust you because someone they know vouched for you. But if you never stay in touch with existing customers, you never get these referrals.

Why This Destroys Businesses

When you ignore existing customers, you leave money on the table and make customer acquisition much harder than it needs to be.

You should build systems for staying connected with customers after the initial transaction. Follow up to make sure they’re satisfied. Ask for testimonials and reviews. Offer additional products or services that complement what they already bought. Request referrals when appropriate.

Create a simple customer relationship management system—even if it’s just a spreadsheet—where you track your customers and set reminders to check in with them regularly.

Many businesses get 50% or more of their revenue from repeat customers and referrals. But you’ll never tap into this revenue source if you’re only focused on finding new customers.

Treat your existing customers like the valuable assets they are. Nurture these relationships. Make it easy for them to buy from you again and refer others to you. This single shift can dramatically improve your revenue without increasing your marketing spend.

Mistake 9: Giving Up Too Soon When Results Don’t Come Immediately

This might be the most heartbreaking mistake on this list because it happens right before success would have come.

New entrepreneurs start their business expecting quick results. They think that if they work hard for a few months, they should see significant success. When three months pass and they’re not where they thought they’d be, they get discouraged.

When six months pass and they’re still struggling, they start doubting their business idea. When nine months pass without the breakthrough they expected, they quit.

They give up right before the compound effect would have kicked in. They abandon their business right before the consistent effort would have started producing significant results.

Building a business is not a sprint—it’s a marathon. Most successful businesses don’t become profitable until at least 12-18 months in. Many take 2-3 years before they’re generating the income the entrepreneur hoped for.

But new entrepreneurs don’t have realistic expectations about timing. They compare their first-year business to established businesses that have been around for 5-10 years. They expect year-one results to look like year-five results. When reality doesn’t match their expectations, they quit.

Why This Destroys Businesses

Giving up too soon guarantees failure. The only way to ensure you never succeed is to quit before success has time to materialize.

You should give your business at least 12-18 months of consistent effort before you evaluate whether it’s viable. Not half-hearted effort where you’re constantly doubting and second-guessing yourself. Full commitment where you’re implementing the right strategies consistently.

Success rarely happens on your timeline. It happens on its own timeline based on the compounding effect of your consistent actions. The first few months build foundation. The next few months build momentum. Eventually, if you don’t quit, the momentum builds to the point where things start clicking and revenue starts flowing.

But most people quit in the foundation-building phase because they’re not seeing visible results yet. They don’t understand that the work they’re doing now is setting up the results they’ll see six months from now.

This doesn’t mean you should persist with strategies that clearly aren’t working. You should absolutely adjust your approach based on feedback and results. But you shouldn’t give up on your entire business just because success isn’t immediate.

Be patient. Trust the process. Stay consistent. Give your business the time it needs to succeed.

Mistake 10: Not Investing in Learning How to Run a Business

This is the underlying mistake that makes all the other mistakes more likely.

New entrepreneurs think that passion and hard work are enough. They start a business doing something they’re good at—maybe they’re a great designer, or a skilled consultant, or an excellent trainer—and they assume that being good at their craft means they’ll be good at running a business.

But being good at your craft and being good at business are completely different skill sets. You might be the best graphic designer in your city, but that doesn’t mean you know how to market a design business, price your services profitably, manage cash flow, or scale operations.

New entrepreneurs resist investing in business education. They think they can figure it out on their own. They think business courses or coaching are too expensive. They believe they’re too busy to learn—they just need to work harder.

So they make mistake after mistake that could have been avoided if they had simply learned from people who’ve already built successful businesses. They waste time and money learning lessons the hard way when they could have learned them easily from mentors, courses, or books.

Why This Destroys Businesses

Ignorance is expensive. Every mistake you make because you didn’t know better costs you time, money, and momentum. The price of education is always less than the price of ignorance.

You should invest in learning how to run a business from day one. Read books about entrepreneurship. Take courses on marketing, sales, and business management. Find a mentor who’s achieved what you want to achieve. Join communities of entrepreneurs where you can learn from others’ experiences.

This investment pays for itself many times over. One good piece of advice can save you from a costly mistake. One effective strategy you learn can generate thousands or millions of naira in additional revenue.

The most successful entrepreneurs I know are constant learners. They read. They attend seminars. They hire coaches. They’re always upgrading their knowledge because they understand that their business can only grow as much as they grow.

Don’t let pride or frugality keep you from learning what you need to know. The money you spend on business education is an investment in your success, not an expense.

The Common Thread: Lack of Preparation and Unrealistic Expectations

If you look at all these mistakes, you’ll notice a common theme: new entrepreneurs jump into business without adequate preparation and with unrealistic expectations about how business actually works.

They expect immediate results. They expect things to be easier than they are. They expect their passion and hard work to be enough. They expect customers to come to them without much effort. They expect profitability without proper pricing. They expect growth without investing in learning and help.

These expectations set them up for failure from the beginning.

The truth is that building a successful business is harder than most people think, takes longer than most people expect, and requires skills that most people don’t have when they start.

But—and this is crucial—building a successful business is absolutely achievable if you avoid these deadly mistakes and commit to doing things the right way from the beginning.

How to Avoid These Mistakes in Your First Year

Let me give you a practical action plan for avoiding these mistakes and giving your business the best chance of success in year one.

Action 1: Validate Before You Build

Before you invest significant time and money building your business, validate that people will actually pay for what you’re offering. Talk to potential customers. Test your concept with a minimum viable offering. Get people to commit money or pre-orders before you build the full version.

Don’t skip this step because you’re excited to start. The few weeks you spend validating could save you months of wasted effort building something nobody wants.

Action 2: Choose Your Niche and Own It

Define exactly who you serve and what specific problem you solve for them. Make your positioning crystal clear. Create marketing messages that speak directly to your target niche. Resist the temptation to broaden your appeal.

You can always expand later, but start focused. Become the obvious choice for a specific group of people.

Action 3: Price Based on Value, Not Fear

Calculate what your services are actually worth based on the results you deliver. Look at what successful competitors charge. Then set your prices at or above market rate, even if it feels uncomfortable.

Trust that the right customers will pay fair prices for quality work. Don’t race to the bottom trying to compete on price.

Action 4: Spend Money Only on Revenue Generation

Create a strict rule: in year one, you only spend money on things that directly generate revenue or are absolute necessities you cannot operate without.

Before every purchase, ask: “Will this help me get customers or make money in the next 60 days?” If no, don’t buy it yet.

Action 5: Get Help Early

Identify the tasks that drain your time but don’t require your expertise. Find affordable ways to get help with these tasks through freelancers, virtual assistants, or automation tools.

Protect your time for high-value activities: sales, strategy, relationship building. Delegate or automate everything else as soon as you can afford to.

Action 6: Market Consistently Every Day

Block time every single day for marketing activities. Make this non-negotiable, even when you’re busy with client work. Build your pipeline constantly so you never run out of potential customers.

Choose 2-3 marketing channels that reach your target audience and focus on those consistently rather than trying to be everywhere.

Action 7: Track Your Key Numbers Weekly

Set up a simple system for tracking your revenue, expenses, profit, customer sources, and other key metrics. Review these numbers every week.

Make decisions based on what the numbers show you, not on how you feel about your business.

Action 8: Build Relationships With Existing Customers

Create a system for staying in touch with every customer after the initial transaction. Follow up, ask for feedback, offer additional value, request referrals.

Treat your existing customers as your most valuable asset and invest in these relationships.

Action 9: Commit to at Least 18 Months

Make a commitment right now that you will give your business at least 18 months of consistent, focused effort before you evaluate whether to continue.

Expect challenges. Expect slow periods. Expect mistakes. But don’t quit during the foundation-building phase just because results aren’t immediate.

Action 10: Invest in Business Education

Allocate a portion of your budget—even if it’s small—to learning how to run a business effectively. Read books, take courses, find mentors, join communities.

The knowledge you gain will save you from costly mistakes and accelerate your path to profitability.

The Truth About Entrepreneurship in Year One

Let me be completely honest with you about what your first year as an entrepreneur will actually look like.

It will be harder than you think. You’ll work longer hours than you expected. You’ll face more rejection than you’re comfortable with. You’ll doubt yourself more than you’d like to admit. There will be moments when you wonder if you made a mistake leaving your job or investing your money in this business.

This is normal. This is the entrepreneurship journey. Everyone who’s built a successful business has gone through this difficult first year.

But here’s what’s also true: if you avoid these deadly mistakes, if you do things the right way from the beginning, if you stay committed even when it’s hard—you’ll make it through year one and into year two where things get significantly easier.

The entrepreneurs who fail in year one are not less talented than those who succeed. They’re not less hardworking. They simply make these preventable mistakes that derail their progress before they build momentum.

You now know what these mistakes are. You understand why they’re deadly. You have an action plan for avoiding them.

This knowledge gives you an enormous advantage over other new entrepreneurs who will stumble into these same traps and struggle unnecessarily.

Your Decision

I’ve given you everything you need to avoid the mistakes that kill most new businesses in their first year. You know the traps. You know how to avoid them. You know what to do instead.

Now you need to make a choice.

Will you let this be another article you read and forget about? Or will you actually implement these strategies and give your business the best possible chance of success?

The difference between entrepreneurs who make it and those who don’t is not luck or talent. It’s making better decisions—specifically, avoiding the deadly mistakes that kill most businesses.

You should go through this list right now and identify which mistakes you’re most at risk of making based on your personality and situation. Be honest with yourself. Then create specific plans for how you’ll avoid each one.

Print this list. Keep it somewhere you’ll see regularly. Review it monthly throughout your first year to make sure you’re staying on track.

Your first year is crucial. The decisions you make and the habits you build in these first 12 months will set the trajectory for your entire business. Make them count.

Thousands of entrepreneurs start businesses every year. Most of them fail by making these exact mistakes. But you’re not going to be one of them because you now know what to avoid and what to do instead.

Take this knowledge seriously. Apply it diligently. Stay committed to doing things the right way even when it’s harder than cutting corners.

Twelve months from now, you can be one of the entrepreneurs celebrating making it through year one successfully and positioning yourself for exponential growth in year two. Or you can be one of the statistics—another failed business that couldn’t make it past the first year.

The choice is entirely yours. The information is here. The roadmap is clear. Now go build your business the right way and prove that you’re one of the few who makes it.

Your successful first year starts right now with the decision to avoid these deadly mistakes. Make that decision. Commit to it. And watch how different your entrepreneurial journey becomes when you’re not constantly recovering from preventable errors.

You’ve got this. Now go execute.