Beginning as a tech entrepreneur is incredibly challenging. Lots of people start businesses only to abandon them later or to simply have them crash and burn. For that matter, it’s important to remember that many people have great ideas for tech businesses but are not necessarily able to execute them properly. This is often because they make common entrepreneur mistakes.

With that being said, the more you know about some of these common mistakes, the easier it is for you to avoid them. Below, we’re going to explore some of the most common entrepreneur mistakes and what you should do if you want to keep them from befalling you and your business.

1. Bad Pitches

You’ll quickly discover as an entrepreneur that you’ll be pitching your business to people quite often. Most often, your pitches will be aimed at potential investors. You’ll be pitching to investors in order to secure funding for your business. While this can be intimidating, it’s impossible to avoid. Small businesses cannot succeed without funding, and in order to be a successful tech entrepreneur you need to convince investors that your business is worth investing in.

The problem is that this is sometimes a piece of tech entrepreneur advice that small business owners aren’t ready to hear. It’s understandable if you have a fear of presenting to people at first. But a fear of public speaking can be quite devastating for your business prospects. Those who have a fear of public speaking typically make roughly 10% less than those who don’t. Fortunately, a fear of public speaking can be conquered. You just need to take public speaking lessons, ideally from a great public speaker themselves. But if you don’t dedicate yourself to overcoming this fear, it could become a major issue for you and your business.

2. Making Bad Partnerships

When starting a business, you’ll most likely want or need to work with a business partner at some point. Finding a business partner is a good idea. But finding the wrong business partner is one of the most common entrepreneur mistakes that can sink your business remarkably fast.

Perhaps one of the most significant mistakes that an entrepreneur can make is partnering with someone that is too close to them. There is a reason why they say not to mix business with pleasure. Partnering with a friend or family member can mix the personal and the professional too closely, especially if your business partner wants to be heavily involved. Make sure that if you do decide to move forward with this type of partnership, you are clear with your boundaries.

3. Lack of Research

Research is obviously important in general. Entrepreneurs need to know a lot about their business field, their products and services, and much more. But perhaps one of the most deadly and common entrepreneur mistakes is failing to research the competition.

The competition needs to be researched so that you understand how they market and run their businesses, what works for them, and what doesn’t work for them. Another important component of researching your competition is understanding what they’re missing in the market and what gaps your business can fill. Failing to do this is missing a major opportunity as an entrepreneur.

4. Taking Too Long to Launch

While it’s important for you to research the competition and prepare properly when launching your business, there is such a thing as taking too long to do so. Business owners need to be aware of a ticking clock on the freshness of their business idea. This is particularly true if they are launching products or services for which they cannot obtain patents. In that case, it’s all too easy for ideas to be taken and adapted by other entrepreneurs.

Additionally, a business owner’s passion can fade if the business takes too long to launch. You need to strike while the iron is hot and make sure that you’re doing what you need to do to launch your business as soon as possible.

Launching a business is incredibly difficult. But it can also be remarkably rewarding. Do your research and make sure that you’re ready to launch.