Cover stories of successful entrepreneurs overshadow the naked truth: multiple adversities await unconscious risk-takers.

Beginnings are hard. When you launch a product, service, or entire business, failure is the most probable end result. Success happens once in a while. And we talk here about nothing fancy but basic business viability. 

The odds of failing are sky-high. It is hard to swallow for anyone who builds something. Entrepreneurs are portrayed as heroes, but they are a few who survived. To admit this fact means to ruin the optimism which drives your attempts. 

Your belief in such a pessimistic outlook may be full of doubt. In the end, our society talks a lot about success. But we tend to forget that modern media shows an incomplete picture of reality. In the real world, success is an outlier among widespread failures. 

No matter the company size, new ideas sprout on a barren soil of harsh reality: 

• Most ideas impress no one.

• Finding a breakthrough idea gets more complicated.

• Launching a business is hard and gets even worse.

• Money doesn’t improve chances for success.

• The fight for people’s attention to market anything is a growing struggle.

The bottom line: No matter how nasty things are, seeing them in true colors leads to better outcomes. Unlike the muddy soil of our wishful thinking, a harsh reality is an infertile but stable ground as a base for any venture. And when you are willing to welcome problems waiting around the corner, you may take advantage of methods designed to decrease the failure risk.