Being successful can be a real problem. For starters, your taxes will go up. People will want to interview you, be your friend, give you money, ask you for advice, ask you for money, want to borrow money. The list goes on an on. Who has time for that?

Today we start a series of posts to help you avoid all that mess that success brings. Follow these tips on how to fail as an entrepreneur and you won’t have any of that to deal with. Don’t follow these tips and prepare for the pain and stress that success brings. If you’re going to disregard this advice, please warn you accountant ahead of time.

I’d love to hear from our clients on their business tips. Many of the companies that use Veracart are run by successful entrepreneurs and managers. What are your tips to ensure that you’re not “too” successful?

Here’s the first one:

Tip # 1 on How to Ensure you Fail in Business – Spend Too Much Money

Over-paying by not doing your research is a common trait of unsuccessful entrepreneurs. You can save a lot of time by not doing any research to know what things should cost. For example, if you’re building a website, the best thing to do is call your brother-in-law who took a web design class in high school, or better yet, just call the guy who is a friend of your neighbor’s baby-sitter who makes websites.

If you just go directly to someone you sort of know you’re guaranteed to get the the best quality.  Besides, it’s always easy to fire your brother-in-law. Don’t get bids from multiple sources and don’t talk to people who have a good idea of what you need. Experts are useless.

I recently judged a business plan competition and read a business plan that included an expense of $15,000 for software you can get online for free. In addition, the plan called for thousands of dollars a month in server costs for equipment that wasn’t needed. This company was projecting to spend tens of thousands of dollars more than was necessary, which is a terrible waste of money that could have been avoided by doing a bit more research. They are well on their way to failure and you can be too if you fail to learn what things should cost and spend too much money.

What advice would you give others on the best way to ensure you don’t succeed?

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