This summer I finally decided to take a plunge cancel some of our contracts to free up the time and jumped into our own project, committing both financially and time wise. Of course it seemed easier than it really was. My partner and I thought that the first month we will bring every dollar back. We are on a 3rd month and we didn’t even broke even yet, but the project finally moved into the right direction and now it is the matter of time when the risk will finally pay off.
This was not an easy time for us, we had to pay our employees steady salary while my partner and I would not get anything as all of the money we got was invested in marketing. After we finally reached the level of income we wanted, we again said no to it – buckled up and lived off (still living) our credit lines. This obviously takes emotional toll, but it is a great motivator and we learned so many lessons from it:
- As an entrepreneur you conquer the fear – you can’t let fear of loosing your toys, home or a car to paralyze you. You need to sleep well at night to be energized. Instead of thinking about the money problem, you need to think about the solution – how to make your business work as fast as possible. At the end of the day you will!
- You need to be ready to start from scratch - entrepreneur are similar to gamblers. We earn our money hard and then we are ready to risk it all, for the next big thing. We can’t do it any other way, risk and reward is in our blood. If you want to be entrepreneur, you need to be ready to go back to square one at any day and any time. Your ideas might fail and you need to have enough believe in yourself to get up and do it ALL OVER AGAIN.
- Don’t cheat- when times get tough, a desire to cut corners (fake some marketing tests, scoop leads) is right there. It is so easy to cheat, however the only one who you are cheating is yourself! You need to be able to make your business work long term. If you need to rely on cheating, the business will eventually crumble. Stick to your guns (principles) and make your business work (or get into another business). That is the only way. Adherence to principles in tough times builds character and self respect.
