10 Things I’ve Learned About Myself as a First-Time Founder
I always knew I wanted to run my own business. But only a year ago I gained the courage and (as I then thought) experience to leave the cushy monthly salary, great team, and venture out on a journey that would be nothing like I was expecting.
The business I’ve decided to start — a medical wellness clinic with my mum as the Medical Director — was completely out of my expertise (digital, eCommerce & tech), in a completely new industry (medical), in a country I’ve never lived before and knew nothing about (Spain), but the idea was driven by my passion for wellness and nutrition. The passion, plus my marketing know-how and experience of building and growing businesses (not by myself, however, with a team of excellent co-workers) helped me believe that I absolutely had what it took to launch and grow a successful business.
Despite a few obstacles — the expected ones (a shortage of finances) and the unexpected (a global pandemic!) — I managed to keep my business afloat, growing, and in a pretty good condition during the first year.
However, despite external factors, there were learnings and difficulties related to my personal growth and self-development, which I wasn’t prepared for, despite watching numerous interviews, TED talks, and podcasts by entrepreneurs and business consultants I admire.
So, to celebrate my business’s 1st anniversary, I put together a list of 10 learnings I’ve experienced on my journey, hoping that some of you might find them useful or entertaining. Here we go.
1. Letting go of the ‘9–5’ mindset
Letting go of my ‘9–5’ mentality turned out to be a challenge. For the first few months I’ve tried to hold on to it, but it just didn’t work. I had to learn how to work when I’m most inspired, and not feel guilty about it. I had to explain to myself that not starting the work at 9 am is okay and that it is also okay to work well past midnight.
The ‘9–5’ mentality has been so deeply stuck in my head that at first, it was hard to accept that there are other ways and times of being productive. Right now, I still prefer to stick to regular hours, but I also let myself work when I’m ready and not feel guilty about it. That’s when I produce the best work.
2. Feeling guilty because I don’t have a ‘proper job’
I believe that working for a successful company gives you a lot of satisfaction, and also that being an entrepreneur gives you freedom and independence. I always knew that being an entrepreneur will eventually become my career path, but when I quit my job, suddenly I started feeling guilty that I don’t have a ‘normal’ 9–5 job anymore.
Despite knowing that it was my conscious choice, there were thoughts in my head asking — am I a failure? I even tried to look for a job, just to be hired somewhere. It took me a while to reprogram my brain and accept that now I have my own company and that this is my actual, full-time job.
3. There is so much to learn, you feel your brain steaming
When I’ve decided to launch a business within an industry I didn’t know much about, I knew I’d have a lot to learn. ‘A lot to learn’ turned out to be over 50% of my time. And it wasn’t a gradual, organized learning process. It was (and still is) the hardcore steep curve type of learning. The one where you just try to cram into your head so much information, on so many different topics at once, that you literally feel your brain expand.
But that is necessary, no way around it. You need to know your business and your industry inside out. The learning never stops, and unless you know the answer to every question — from what’s the paint number we used on the walls in the office, to what is our monthly return on marketing, you will not be able to make the best decisions for your business.
4. You are your team
When working for another company, I became used to always having highly skilled people all around me who supported my tasks, and also people above me with more experience, who would provide me with feedback. I didn’t understand the meaning of ‘working on my own’ until literally everything I had to do was on my own. Suddenly, I needed to wear all the hats and learn to switch between them within seconds.
On an average workday, I am the receptionist, the accountant, the doctor’s assistant, the manager, the business owner, the cleaner, the photographer, the art director, the marketer, the graphic designer, and it doesn’t stop there. The variety is great, but it took me a while to own each and every one of these roles, without having a small anxiety attack.
5. You better love what you do, because you will ‘live it’
Once you create and start working on your business, you think about it all-the-time. Work is never done — when you sleep, you dream about your business. When you work, you work on growing your business. When you watch Netflix, you relate every situation to your business (or maybe it’s the other way-round — you watch every show that’s related to a business — Silicon Valley, The Office, Arrested Development, anyone?). When you drink, you complain about your business. When you date, you only talk about your business. When you eat, you hurry, so you can get back to your business. There is no end, so make sure you enjoy what you do.
6. Hold yourself accountable and reward yourself
Once I was on my own, I realized there was no one around me to manage me and to set deadlines. At first, it was great — no one to nag me when things don’t get done! But I quickly understood that in order to succeed, I needed to learn how to motivate myself, hold myself accountable, and how to be able to rely on myself.
It is not easy to follow through on everything when the only person setting deadlines for you is yourself, but what I found useful with staying on track was to celebrate small victories. Things like higher social post engagement, jump in SEO rankings, every time a customer comes back or recommends their friend — no matter how small the success is, celebrate it to remind yourself that you’re working hard and doing a good job! As a result, I started to trust myself more, and it’s also a really nice dopamine boost!
7. Structure is the key
Organization and structure are dominant parts of Japanese culture and Japanese management style, and building my career in Japan have hammered these two principles into my head. Now, I feel like they are my superpowers.
Being well-organized, establishing processes, and documenting everything make your life so much easier, that I bless all these days I spent crying in the bathroom as an intern in Japanese companies, upset with my senpais (your supervisors) who, I thought, were limiting my creativity with their correctness.
8. Consistency equals success
What I’ve learned during my years as a marketing professional, and what I’ve further confirmed through my experience as an entrepreneur, is that consistency is the key to success. It takes time to be successful, and being consistent with marketing, communication with customers, the overall flow of information about your business that your audience receives, is one of the most important factors that will determine your success.
It took my business almost a year of consistent content creation to rank at the top in organic Google search for the relevant keywords, it took us a year to have appointments scheduled almost every day, and it took my business a year for it to be ready to hire an additional person. Despite how much I’ve tried, there’s no way around this one. If you’re playing the long-term game, you need to build your foundation with consistency.
9. It will be hard before it gets easy, but you’ll love it
Looking back, during this first year I failed a lot and made a lot of rookie mistakes. I used to get upset with myself, but I quickly learned how to avoid the same mistakes in the future. Things are going to be hard, but that’s part of the process. And the upside of the mistakes is that the success will literally get you high.
The level of gratification I get from seeing happy, returning customers, hitting sales goals, running profitable marketing campaigns, is massive. When I worked for other companies, all the achievements were still exciting, but they didn’t feel like my success. Now, every step forward, every win after a fail, motivates me and makes me so happy, because I know what it took to achieve it. I feel so much more in control of my professional growth than ever before.
10. Don’t underestimate the emotional journey
I see myself as a strong, resilient, rational person. But I definitely underestimated the emotional journey that comes with entrepreneurship. A quick Google search shows, I’m not the only one, but let me tell you: there are good days and there are bad days.
The good days are great, they push you forward, you’re filled with positive emotions, certain about the future success, the work is your number one priority, everything is rainbows and butterflies. But the bad days — those are full of confusion, fear, and loneliness (add to it a global pandemic, business lockdown, and travel ban).
One of the things that got me through the bad days was the ‘consistency’ that I committed to. Even when I was down, I made a conscious decision to show up for my business. And once you do that, the fear changes into hope, the confusion clears out a bit, and the loneliness goes away as you reach out to people you look up to for advice.
Now I know, that all these experiences and learnings I’ve listed above are part of the process. Your business becomes your ‘baby’ that you care for, and when you’re emotionally involved with something, positive emotions and negative emotions become an integral part of the journey. I embrace all these feelings and I’m very much looking forward to where the entrepreneur journey takes me. I can’t say where I’ll be in the next few years, but for now, I choose to stay where I am. Because despite the pressure being massive, the learning curve almost vertical, and the margin of error ocean-wide — it’s okay, as long as in your heart you feel that this is what you want.
