Putting Yourself Out There
Arguably, the most important mindset to starting a business is the willingness to step into the ring and put your name on the line. You must develop the thick skin necessary to literally not care what others think. With everyone looking perfect online nowadays, this is more difficult than you would think at first.
For some of the most successful, failure was not an option. Think of the MBA graduate, fresh out of school with six figures of debt that can never be voided. Failure really isn’t an option – you must succeed. When I took the CFA Level 1 test, I had borrowed a few thousand for the exam fees as well a class at a local college to keep me on track. I was fresh out of college and barely making enough money to cover my studio apartment rent, student loan payment, and groceries at Aldis (quit sleeping on Aldis). I literally could not fail the test because if I did, I would not have been able to re-take it. When your back is against the wall and you win, the feeling is unlike anything I can describe. I passed the test, polished my resume, and broke into a better paying position more aligned with my goals.
There will always be (or at least for me) the presence of self-doubt, especially when starting. However, you must rip the band-aid off. If you don’t even try, this will eat you infinitely more than some person trolling you on twitter for thinking your idea is dumb. To me, there is nothing dumb about working full-time in Dallas, going to the gym after, and making money from a side-hustle while you’re in the steam room because you just sold your product to someone in Arizona. This situation will quickly give you the confidence to know you’re headed in the right direction.
I have said this before, and I do not know where I heard it, but the harsh reality that most are not willing to acknowledge is that pretty much anything can be learned if you have access to the internet. Google has a Data Analytics Professional Certificate that costs $39 a month with an average completion of less than six months. The average salary upon completion is over $65,000. If you don’t want to pay money for anything, literally just go on YouTube and learn what you want to learn. This is exactly how I have managed to learn how to do all of this:
- Starting an LLC
- Building eCommerce site
- Deploying targeted ads
The list goes on…
I feel very strong that no matter if your business survives, you always learn something valuable. Early on it was learning how to build a website, then manage a team (previous venture was primarily an on-demand resume review service), and now it is selling physical products to customers. Each time you jump in, you grow and add more tools to your chest.
No matter what it is, the first step is always jumping in the ring. Your name is attached to your business (crypto people do not contact me about the Satoshi situation please) and if it fails within the first year like ~ 20% of small businesses, you must live with that.
The silver lining to our era is that startup costs are extremely low for an ecommerce business. This isn’t a situation where you are defaulting on a loan at a local bank and hanging up 'going out of business' signs at your brick-and-mortar location. The variables really couldn’t get much better. Barriers to entry are extremely low in several sectors that can make you money. My advice is to just try. I will be releasing a tell all on how I did this if you are looking to do something similar, with the goal of saving you a lot of hours researching different necessary topics for starting a business. But again, nothing matters if you can’t put together the courage to attach your aspiration to your name and be willing to ride it out.