Building is hard.
It’s extremely hard. We live in the most connected time in the history of humanity.
Those connections breed opportunities where none existed before. They also breed competition. No matter the space you’re in, unless you luck upon a blue ocean business, there will be stiff competition.
Your customers want more.
You can’t get by with half-baked features and glitchy software. Your courses and books need to be top notch. Creators are everywhere. They’re producing without looking back.
Your customers don’t care if you’re bootstrapped or VC backed. That’s not their business. It never has been and it never will be.
Your roadmap is full. There’s so much to do and never enough time. You don’t have enough team members. You doubt yourself.
I get it.
Take a deep breath. Keep going.
Unless you’ve forced yourself to learn it, selling is hard. You aren’t confident enough to ask for more money. The close will be awkward.
The thought of getting on the phone with your customers fills you with trepidation. You’re making money but you’re not secure in that knowledge.
It feels like everything is still up for grabs. You could fail at any moment.
Take a deep breath. Keep going.
You don’t have a brand. No one knows about you. One of the most common objections is “who are you guys.”
Recruiting is difficult. There’s no security. It’s a hat toss. You can’t hire the best because you don’t have a brand and there’s no security. You’ve not built a strong brand because you can’t hire the best.
It’s a strange cycle. Push through it because you don’t have a choice.
There’s an inflection point. It’s different for every business. I can’t tell you what it is. I’m still looking for it in my company.
Some people say it’s when you hit $1M in revenue. That’s when it becomes real. Was it fake before then?
It’s still not enough to hire the best in every position. You can hire the best in one or two positions.
You need to make the tough choices. What will move the needle the most for you right now? You can’t chase everything. There’s always too much to do.
Take a deep breath. Keep going.
As long as you have products and services your customers want, build a brand (no matter how small) that they love, and keep pushing forward then you’ll get there.
You’ll reach the stage where you’ll take a deep breath and know it’s going to be OK.
Until you get there — keep going.