Being an entrepreneur is a dream of many. However, without the right knowledge it will remain a dream or a horrible failure. Thankfully, you can educate yourself about common mistakes entrepreneurs make – then avoid them.

1. Avoiding Planning and Organizing in Advance

There is no getting around it; you need to write a business plan and a marketing plan at the very least. You don’t have to write a book, but you can write one- or two-page plans to help you get started. Without a plan along with some organization, you’re simply wishing and dreaming instead of making things happen.

2. Reinventing the Wheel Instead of Improving It

Many entrepreneurs refuse to learn from the people who went before them. Even if you’ve created an entirely new product or service that no one has ever heard of before, the process is the same. Find your audience and solve their pain points, and let them know exactly how it will be done and why you’re the one to do it. This is the same for any business you start. Answer the question: What’s in it for them? If you start from there, everything else will add up.

3. Not Finding Their Market before Creating Their Product

Speaking of the market, it’s imperative that you find the market before you create the products or services. If you’ve already done it the other way, it will be a little harder to appropriately market to the right people to get the word out about what you’re offering. Know who the market is, then give them what they want to solve a problem that they have.

4. Underestimating How Much Marketing They Need to Do

There is no business that you can simply “build it and they will come” – that ideal does not exist. Remember that whatever you create, you’ll need to market it and promote it. In fact, creating the product and service is just part of the problem. Marketing is the ultimate solution to finding clients who want what you have. It’s not something you can skip over. It doesn’t matter if you think selling is icky – you must “always be marketing.”

5. Failing to Delegate and Outsource as Needed

The fact is, you can’t do everything yourself. You’re going to need help. You can find contractors to help. Plus, for a lot of things you can set up automation. Automation in the form of email marketing, lead capture pages, video advertisements and more take some work to set up, but once you have the process in motion, you won’t have to do as much work and can focus your efforts elsewhere.

6. Pricing Their Products Incorrectly

It takes some knowledge to price products and services appropriately. You need to understand your audience, know what they need, and how much discretionary income they have if your product or service is an extra. If your product or service is something they have to buy anyway, you’d price it differently. You have to decide if you’ll use value based pricing, or whether you want to compete on price point. (Hint: price your value.)

7. Striving for Perfection before Launch

Some business owners tend to never launch. They work on everything forever and never quite get done. They spend countless hours perfecting, tweaking and changing their mind about their audience, their offerings and more. Don’t do that. Instead, do the research up front, choose your audience, solve their problems, and launch. Perfect as you go; don’t start over.

Think about it: so many have gone before you, there is no reason to make the same mistakes everyone makes. You can learn from others and then start out that much ahead.