

First 3 months of my "not so romantic" entrepreneurial journey - dudeofjude
http://dudeofjude.tumblr.com/post/47181365807/first-three-months-of-my-entrepreneurial-journey

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billN
Whatever happens, you are a winner.

You decided to get out of your comfort zone, at your own expenses - not many
people are that brave, and this will always pay out. Even if it doesn't work
out for your startup, you know you tried, and you did your best. If you didn't
even try, you would have spent your life wondering what would have happened if
you did.

This will be a huge learning experience for you that at the worst may land you
a highly paid job in some company looking for techies with horizontal
knowledge that spaces on growth, marketing, business development, product,
etc... - it is very difficult to acquire all these skills while working as
employee.

Persistence is key: keep getting feedback (from customers, entrepreneurs,
competitors' study, ...), keep improving the product and don't waste your time
thinking about failures, depression etc... - they are just energy drainers.
Whenever your brain starts sidelining on these sad topics, just think "what
can I get done in the next five minutes?" - it may be answering a support
ticket, fixing a bug, changing copy, implementing a new A/B test, etc...
ANYTHING is still better than thinking about failures. You are failing when
you think too much about it and do nothing to get back on track. And you DO
have the energy to go ahead, so just go! You'll realize that very likely these
5 minutes will become 10, then 60, etc... and at the end of the day you'll
feel a great sense of accomplishment.

You will be rejected a number of times. Your work and skills will be
understated. A LOT. Entrepreneurship is a great toughening experience. Be a
winner, believe in yourself and always work to proof people wrong.

Also, if you need more customers - would you be able to provide a free account
to some early members, in exchange of some valuable feedback? This is one of
the best product growth hack.

One advice though: if you don't need to, don't search for funding. Build a MVP
that works, that customers love and make it profitable. Even if you have a
very small set of customers. You may need funding when you decide to scale it
- but that's a much better situation to be in (and your startup evaluation
will be way higher).

Now, think about what you can do your next five minutes to improve your
product - and do it :)!

Best of luck!

~~~
dudeofjude
Extremely thankful, it brought smile back on my face. Thanks a lot, next 5
mins. yes I am going to do some stuff for sure. Thanks a ton man! Folks on HN
are so amazing.

~~~
billN
glad to help - I went through many times a situation like this, and I admire
people like you who take initiative and get out of the comfort zone.

Whenever something gets really tough - you should be thankful, because if
means that you stumbled upon a situation that only few people overcome (for
entrepreneurs, many times this situation is depression), and now it's your
chance to finally distinguish yourself as a winner.

FYI: <http://1humor.com/img/upload/25062012104430-zone.jpg>

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soheilpro
Find a co-founder. Being a single founder is hard. VERY HARD. Doing startups
is a tough and demanding job and having someone who shares your passion beside
you along the journey is priceless.

A good co-founder not only can help you with some tech/business aspects of the
startup, but he/she will be your best friend in this emotional rollercoaster
that you are going through as an entrepreneur.

------
gearoidoc
Good luck dude.

Might be a good idea to link your startup somewhere in the post too ;-)

~~~
dudeofjude
No, I don't want people to figure out, who I am. I want to build an anonymous
identity read this [http://dudeofjude.tumblr.com/post/45575373237/maintaining-
an...](http://dudeofjude.tumblr.com/post/45575373237/maintaining-anonymity-on-
internet) :-)

