By Charl Vollmer, special to Octane Blog

I’ve heard people say that being an entrepreneur is tough, and that you’ll undoubtedly make many mistakes along the way. As for me, I tried proving everyone wrong. I wanted to show the world that I could beat this entrepreneurial race. Little did I know I would encounter more mistakes than I had ever anticipated, and that which I couldn’t have prepared for. Here are my lessons learned:

1. Think things through carefully: An idea popped into my head one day, and I had that “a-ha” moment. I’m going to start my own digital-marketing agency. I had everything planned. I was ready to take on the world. I started executing various tasks, such as getting my website up and running, and creating logos and brochures. After the second day of working non-stop, I realized the amount of work I needed to put in to get my venture off the ground. My excitement clouded my judgement, and I never got the chance to mentally prepare for all the hard work I needed to put in. Sometimes we become so excited that we forgot about what we have to do to accomplish our goal. Once the novelty wears off, we often decide to put things on hold. My advice to someone starting out is: Think things through right from the start. Ask yourself these two questions: How much effort is needed to make this idea/dream a reality? Do you see yourself putting in all this effort?