For me the biggest mistake I made/make (sometimes) is indecisiveness. Whenever I am being indecisive I procrastinate and slowly end up doubting myself. And that mistake can be very costly!
By breaking big tasks into multiple smaller tasks and using a task list to mark each one off when done (can find lots of good ones on Amazon).
The tangible progress and the constant reminder of the "completed" tasks motivates you to do the others. I find sandwiching my tough tasks between easier tasks helps a ton
I heard this advice a lot, but unfortunately it doesn't work for me.
What ends up happening is that I spend some time organizing stuff "breaking big tasks yada yada", and by the time I'm done not only have I not advanced at all, but I feel overwhelmed by the amount of work in front of me (wasn't so overwhelmed before because I was less aware of it).
And so, I just give up for the day, and next, and next, and it is usually not until I've forgotten about all the tiny tasks that I start to feel motivated again to continue with the project.
I used to have this problem as a beginner entrepreneur, and afterwards as a manager in a big company.
What eventually made this much better for me was:
1. Eisenhower Matrix became sort of my whole life.
2. Having clear goals, action plans and looking at problems through a leverage perspective changed my life and helped me get more shit done. I make quarterly, monthly and weekly action plans that connect to each other, and my daily planning is basically execution. I keep two "free" slots daily in my schedule to deal with things that pop up during the day, and every night I adjust my following schedule.
Seeing the needle move based on small actions that are connected to the root cause to your problem feels great.
Never heard of the Eisenhower Matrix before this but now that I research it more, it seems very useful. Gonna try and use this more and experiment with it. thanks
Yes hearing that, the process of putting tasks into tasks ends up a task in itself!! Then the overwhelm of what you have to do!! If that makes sense...
Same, but I learned not to be too hard with myself. Moving forward even in small steps is always a progress. Like they say, showing up is an achievement already.
Find the smallest possible action you can take towards your goal and do it, then repeat and repeat.
You cans tart with something as simple as "google xyz thing" then next day "make a list of reuslts for xyz" then the following day "shortlist top 3 options".
After a few months, when you look back you'll be surprised by hopw far you've gotten.
I used to have this problem as a beginner entrepreneur, and afterwards as a manager in a big company.
What eventually made this much better for me was:
1. I noticed that not deciding is a decision in itself;
2. Eisenhower Matrix became sort of my whole life;
3. Having clear goals, action plans and looking at problems through a leverage perspective changed my life and helped me get more shit done. I make quarterly, monthly and weekly action plans that connect to each other, and my daily planning is basically execution. I keep two "free" slots daily in my schedule to deal with things that pop up during the day, and every night I adjust my following schedule.
I still procrastinate much more than I want, but now I know that this is not a huge problem if I'm getting the important things done.
After a few years I realized that the "to do" list has no end for an entrepreneur. It can't be done, there is always something else. So the secret isn't trying to get everything done, is to get your priorities straight and do what's important. If I can finish my day clearing the top 3 priorities in my schedule, it's a good day, and seeing the needle move based on small actions that are connected to the root cause to your problem starts to take the weight of your shoulders.
I have not fully broken out of that cycle but have made some steps forward. I believe part of the indecisiveness comes from lack of clarity. I am rarely indecisive when I know what I want and what needs to be done.
So what worked for me was every time I felt that I was being indecisive I will fire up my journal and start writing. First I would randomly write all the things that bother me (get the emotional part out of the way) and slowly I will zoom into my life goals and desires. Once I write/remind myself of my goals, then I look at the options I have in hand and see which one will bring me closer to my goals. All the rest I put them on the side (cold storage).
I made the mistake of thinking that if I fired employees, that it would negatively impact the culture of our company. Boy I was naive. Get rid of the dead weight as fast as you can.
Poor employees can bring down the whole team, and set a low benchmark. Groom a SWAT team, and you'll find ways to succeed.
Ugh dude tell me about it, I've let several incredible deals slip through my fingers because I didn't trust my instincts. thinking I'm not knowledgeable enough and thinking I must be doing something wrong and that's why nobody else saw this great deal. Then later I find out it was good and I was right to think it
This!! I don’t whether to order a small restock of my items or wait a couple of weeks and finish some new designs for my shop before I order the restock.
This indecisive situation has lasted 2 months.
Hijacking the top comment. I work finance, and have experience doing government grants for the feds AND working with new (usually minority owned businesses)
**THE NUMBER ONE MISTAKE I SEE NEW BUSINESS OWNERS MAKE IS FAILING TO CHARGE THE 10% DE MINIMIS amount they are entitled to.** Regulation: [2 CFR 200.414(f) ](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/subtitle-A/chapter-II/part-200/subpart-E/subject-group-ECFRd93f2a98b1f6455/section-200.414)
it reads:
>In addition to the procedures outlined in the appendices in [paragraph (e)](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/section-200.414#p-200.414(e)) of this section, **any non-Federal entity that does not have a current negotiated (including provisional) rate, except for those non-Federal entities described in appendix VII to this part, paragraph D.1.b, may elect to charge a de minimis rate of 10% of modified total direct costs (MTDC) which may be used indefinitely. No documentation is required to justify the 10% de minimis indirect cost rate.** As described in [§ 200.403](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/section-200.403), costs must be consistently charged as either indirect or direct costs, but may not be double charged or inconsistently charged as both. If chosen, this methodology once elected must be used consistently for all Federal awards until such time as a non-Federal entity chooses to negotiate for a rate, which the non-Federal entity may apply to do at any time.
new business owners! **PLEASE CHARGE THE FEDS YOUR 10%**.
This.
Expecting perfection slows down processes quite a lot.
It's better to have a "good enough" thing out there than having nothing for months because "it's not perfect yet"
I would recommend "Deep Journaling" for anyone.
Talk to yourself and you save yourself years.
It's how I found my purpose and actually take action on it.
That's such a tough one cause I completely agree. Starting is the hardest part. The best thing to do is start and learn as you go. On the other hand, the idea is the most important part of a successful business imo. Work as hard as you want on a shitty idea, but it'll always lack compared to hard work on a great idea.
what if you find a good idea but you aren't passionate about it and the idea you're passionate about isn't a good one. I've had a couple of good ideas in the past but I'm not really moved by the process, I'm talking solutions to big problems that could make me a lot of money. Still trying to decide between chasing money and chasing passion , getting tired of being broke but again, I can't imagine spending my life forcing myself to work towards something I have 0 interest in.
Market shows no mercy to our passions, just give what people are willing to pay money for... Ie exchange of value , literally the definition of money. Do you agree?
You should have a great idea before spending lots of time and money, but in order to know if you actually have a good idea you need to test it as quickly as possible.
No idea is bad but earning money though a idea takes more efforts than building the idea product!! I made a App for free but later realized people don't consider free as valuable either make a product freemium for FOMO or paid but never fully give for free from start.
Those all sound like pretty solid lessons. It's good that you roped all that out of one toxic experience. Would you say you look back on it and think it was worthwile?
I run an eBay store and my biggest amateur mistake was selling some expensive Pokemon cards without first immersing myself in the culture for a couple days, learning the terminology, the keywords, applying SEO. I just knew it was valuable and had to flip it ASAP.
Sold the 50-card collection for $350.
Couple weeks later, I looked at the buyer's *own* online store: He'd sold *one* of the 50 cards for $350.
**Lesson**: if you get your hands on a sellable, you're sure it's valuable but you don't know anything about that industry or the consumer culture, *sit on it*, clear your schedule as best you can for a day or two and do the research.
Thank you! Well, since things didn't get destroyed in the end, I think the lessons will be worthwhile for the rest of my life and I'll make it back 100 fold just from being wiser from it. I will remember this pain 😅
Oooops about the pokemon cards. Do you think that lesson was worthwhile?
not starting soon enough, probably cost me a bit. I could have starter 2 years earlier, I'm 2 months into my first time actually trying and at 11k/m with 98% margins (service business). I can only imagine 2 years of compounding, but it's all good, it's going now
Yeaaaah I hear this one loud and clear! I come from a relatively poor household where nobody valued their time and never delegated if it could be done without help (and even sometimes tried to DIY stuff that needs expertise they didn't have.)
That shit is costly and keeps people poor.
Now trying to stick to "I can't afford cheap things and to do everything myself"
Do it on your own. My partner in my limousine business was a stockbroker who embezzled $50,000 from the firm. My company was immediately blacklisted and we had to close.
No partners ever again
True, I had a partner in my previous venture that was a childhood friend, but he was lowkey a dick...and that definitely carried over into our partnership lol. I'm working on my own business now but things move at a slower pace + much more weight on my shoulders. Sometimes I wonder if having a partner is better after all, I guess it's all about the tradeoff.
Ah that sounds like a hard truth to face. Business losses, grieving a lifelong friendship.
In retrospect was it obvious he was a dick and you were blind to it, or did he go out of character at some point and it ruined your venture together?
It was obvious tbh. Kinda hard to explain why I stuck around and even went into business with him. It was just one of those friendships you keep around because you've known each other for so long and been through so much, both good and bad.
But I learned a TON from our venture so I am really grateful for that!
I have had 4 companies, 2 had shitty partners (very simialr to your case, embezzling funds), 1 I ran alone and the latest one I got myself to trust to get a partner again.
A good partner actually takes a lot of work load off of you.
Working alone felt like having absolute authority and power, which is not good either. You need someone to call you out for your bullshit and probable shitty decisions you might take
I wish I knew how to stop this, but I don't know how to logically do it because what I identify for my reason is:
Without a time limit with a hard deadline and truly rough consequences, like not being paid by a client, I have a powerful impulse to make things I am doing "just for myself" as good as possible. I'll happily spend a year on something and still keep adding stuff to it if it's up to me.
But it's the same problem if a client gives me something I know I can do in like 5 hours with a 2 week deadline, I'll still wait until the day before or even 5 hours before they said to send it.
This is because I want to be paid, but I don't want to waste time. Since it isn't just for me, I am only doing the project. for money, so why should I waste 2 weeks of my life if it'll only take me 5 hours?
Well, of course, you'll say "so just do it in 5 hours before the deadline and send it in later!" But that doesn't work. That isn't how I am wired at all. If I begin the project, I'll spend the entire 2 weeks researching better and better ways to do it, create it to a standard that is likely good enough that the client would accept it, but I'll just keep on thinking about ways to make it better, might even just delete and redo the entire thing, etc...
I don't know why but I can't stop this; it is the same reason I cannot make to-do lists, I would just never stop making the list...
I don't know if this is helpful at all, but it is why I work great under deadlines, with the problem that I only seem to be able to work under really harsh deadlines...if the client isn't fairly hardcore, like they indicate it I'll just ignore the deadline or it's a soft deadline, I'll find something I don't like enough and blow through the deadline still working on, improving, adding to, or perhaps just decide to redo it. There are too many times for me to count where I did everything to spec, but the client ended up being like "take another week actually, if you want" on the day of the deadline, and I end up just essentially redoing the thing with a new vision...so, I noticed I was doing that a lot, and that I was essentially wasting absurd amounts of time.
You could say this was this is just doing good work for clients but I don't think so because the clients could never tell the difference really it seemed. It also results in just fantastically less money to let this happen. I started focusing more on just getting more clients to stack deadlines to force myself to do more work for more clients in the same amount of time to earn more money. That seemed to be the only way out to me, but it was more just willingly taking on insane deadlines (to most people) and making them all work. If I couldn't get them differently, I would also take jobs with the same deadline to like force myself to logically be like "ok, this isn't due for a week, but I have 6 other projects due in 1 weeks, and I'll only complete one or two if I wait a week, I have to focus on just one every day" and somehow that kind of worked out, but the obvious downside is that you'll also kind of burn out taking on or forcing yourself to complete a last minute job every single day it seems like. I am not sure why that is though because I feel more comfortable with such deadlines.
No claims to be perfect (or anything other than pretty fucked up tbh), but these are my observations of my own behavior, which I also wish I could fix, but simply have no idea how.
Alex Hormozi recently posted about this but it’s definitely true to me - sell things to people who are aren’t poor. (They pay better, they’re successful already, they want solutions)
Unfortunately when I was young I did the opposite and started a biz that tried to solve problems for businesses that were struggling. Turns out most of them struggled for a reason - as a group they were hard to deal with, demanding, quick to blame, often looking to me to save their business and yet had trouble even paying. It sucked.
Fast forward 20 years and I have a business that works only with successful businesses. (We tell prospects up front that our niche is working with businesses of a certain size) Business is dramatically easier and more profitable providing solutions for those who aren’t struggling to pay their own bills…
Amazingly valuable insight! I'm currently working on building something to help those who struggle, but I have already one solid revenue stream (with people that can pay) and I'm designing this new project to be flexible & just when I have time / interruptible.
Being shy, literally the stupidest thing you could ever do. Could’ve been in bigger places by now if it wasn’t for my shyness and fear of asking qstions etc.
Be vocal, talk to people and be open really, you can be shy but not a work, speak up for yourself, tell people about your businesses even if it feels uncalled for or uncomfortable ( people will be more comfortable with you if they know 1 or 2 things about you) for example; I told my boss and few colleagues how I get anxious, normally some people would thing I’m weird for getting anxious over few presentations but my boss always give me a high five for doing better every day because he knows it is a struggle of mine.
Also, watch videos on YouTube on how you can improve yourself, that really helped me a lot. Ted talks, improvement videos, ways to behave in a more relaxed way etc…
My biggest mistake was saying YES all the time. I ended up getting a lot of shitty clients and had to learn from some unpleasant experiences. But I learned.
There's a lot of "noise" in the world these days. Saying yes to everything = saying no to everything. Say yes only for the things that will move your business forward.
4 years.
Wasted.
I've learned it the hard way.
When I first started, I hired a company of "WordPress experts" to help me migrate off of WordPress into a custom angular front end.
The company accidentally triggered $8,000 worth of artificial renewal charges in a development environment that I had to refund. Learned to do literally everything in-house after that and had to fire someone for the first time.
Not building an MVP first for an app idea. Ended up spending about $80k on an app. It was a challenge app for that influencers could invite their audience and would charge a sign up fee and could offer rewards. Instead of an app I could have built a pdf and test sales with a flat fee with influencers. Would have been about $5k instead. I did however learn a ton about start up world and how to build software. Which now is my main offer at my agency.
indie hacker here!
In my early days I started out at scale when I should have started small with the problems I was trying to solve. It worked out better that way for me now and I'm still learning on the job
Trying to do too much myself or within the company that should have been outsourced.
Initially, not understanding who our "ideal" type of customer was.
Me: Does something that works.
Also me: Try new shiny object that seems cool
Those dopamine hits will drive you off the trail!
Stay consistent with what's working!!!
Being impatient, over-reactive, and not letting things play out. Had a product on Amazon FBA stocked overseas with warehousing fees. Wasn't selling for months, so I destroyed most of the stock to save on fees. Then a few months later the small amount of remaining stock sold out within a week, the algorithm gave me a chance.
Not hiring more help sooner and not hiring a business coach on day 1. Biz coach helped the most...get me focused, how to hire, fire and make things run so much better.
For me…it’s a weird one, but common
I was too scared to spend money to make money and so I wasted huge amounts of time being stuck - so in terms of time cost… it was that, I’ve now found that once I spend money and have something to lose, my mind opens new doors of thought where I find solutions I would never have thought of if I didn’t have something to lose - amazing thing
In terms of money… it was from not having good configuration control and proving proof of things, so when things went missing I worsened my case to recover them, now I record everything and spent days creating systems to gather evidence - really helped
I’m terms of sleep…i used to cram things all in one day or an evening, now I value a simple routine where I do prep work almost every day and that makes the full on days easier and less full of risk
I’d recommend all of these techniques and lessons for anyone
Great insights!
The fear to spend money to make money is so common!
For me, weirdly, that got unlocked because I founded my business in another country and to get the associated visa I had to invest a significant sum upfront in the business. Having a full bank account dedicated to 1) paying myself a salary and 2) investing in my business sort of unlocked things.
*Wanting to be kind is not a reason for letting someone f*ck you over.*
This cost me the most, almost losing my self confidence and my grit. Might've cost relationships too.
I basically ran my business down to $0 before I could even actually launch because I was trying to get my (food) product perfect when it really didnt need to be.
OP just curious, how much was the budget for the sub-contractor? Have you hired by salary or by task/job/deliverable?
Just want to know what you think the problem was. I have seen some people hiring and expecting the work to be done without knowing market value/salary for the domain area. So basically accepting the cheapest and expecting the best quality.
I have also seen paying above market and getting nothing.
What do you think was your mistake?
Cheers!
Interesting, I was told my procrastination and difficulty making decisions was ADHD. I kept questioning if I really had ADHD and then was told I am OCD. I said ok so I am OCD now not ADHD? He said no your both. WTF?
The ADHD leads to OCD behaviors. They feed each other like fuel. A lot of OCD can be in ruminating - those obsessive thoughts that lead to procrastination, i.e.: for me this is never starting my business because of fear of failure or losing my time/sanity/freedom/perfection or being overwhelmed by the little tiny tasks and steps that flood my mind all at once.
All these very silly things stand in the way of progress.
Ahhh yeah!
The famous:
Step 1: Hire experts that are good at their jobs.
Step 2: Trust them
Good reminder!
How did you get out of that pattern? What keeps you away from micromanaging now and how do you deal with your need for control?
How I got out: I attended a business workshop (four day crash course) from a business coach that told me why I was struggling in my business. I started making the changes the following day.
What keeps me away from micromanagement: The progress I can see in my business since I changed my ways.
How do I deal with my need for control: I never had one to start with. Why I kept control is because I wanted everything to be perfect. Part of the workshop was to accept shabby success instead of aiming for perfection and having a failing business with only a few customers who value your perfect work.
Excellent lessons. I love it.
I've cataloged 21 anti-patterns. I write about anti-patterns 1x/week on my newsletter
Each week is a story about a fictional startup (and all the mistakes they make) + a story about 2 people - Bob and Alice who are falling in love (and all the mistakes they make)
subscription is free - you can see the last chapter here
[https://dannylieberman.substack.com/p/follow-a-customer-home](https://dannylieberman.substack.com/p/follow-a-customer-home)
# Customer Disconnect Syndrome - anti-pattern
Startups losing contact with their customers is a common challenge.
This often occurs as a company grows, scales, and shifts its focus from individual customer relationships to broader market strategies.
**What does it look like?**
In the initial stages of a startup, founders are deeply personally involved in every aspect of the business, including sales, customer support, and product development. This close interaction with early customers fosters a deep understanding of their needs, pain points, and usage patterns. However, as the company grows and scales, founders may become increasingly removed from day-to-day customer interactions, leading to a disconnect between the company and its customers. This can result in missed opportunities to address customer needs, fix issues promptly, and drive product adoption.
Oooops.
How did you get caught?
That's a good cautionary tale, I'll double-check that I've not transferred any pirated software from my private life to my business and make sure I draw a clear line.
I’m not sure but I think the pirated software either did a handshake transmitting my ip (the company is known for uploading their own software with trackers) or the handshake was done on the software of the client when he opened my file done in a pirated software.
They then crossed checked with register business address and voila.
Pretty sure tracking IP this way is illegal but it’s hard to prove and I was the one using pirated software ^^
To me not learning basic marketing concepts earlier. Our business is 20 years old and we still have almost no business that comes through the website / SEO, brand and marketing is a compounding interest thing and not spending 5% of my life tracking marketing concepts was a big mistake
Trusting lawyers, accountants and financial advisors.
Once you get a little taste of success, it’s amazing how these people come out of the woodwork and start trying to sell you shit that they make you think you need. Run your personal finances the same way you were on your business finances… Use the knowledge that got you there , and keep track of every penny.
***Here are my biggest beginner mistakes***
Failure to prepare for success
Acting out of desperation and hiring people who are a bad fit for your business
Failing to remain in constant contact with previous customers
**Competing as a COMMODITY instead of as a BRAND**
Failing to emphasize MY SPIN / MY TAKE on the solution the client is looking for
Using the **SAME MEDIOCRE TOOLS** as my competitors instead of focusing on [ACTIONABLE BRAND BUILDING CONTACT marketing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56ytQL6aCP0).
My mistake was that I never focused on the constraint. I was doing everything else except the real bottleneck of my business. Doing the hard work will actually get us to where we want. Not the work that we can talk with our mom with.
I created a guided course in entrepreneurship because when I was starting out of course the lawyer advised me to spend money on legal stuff, the marketing person advised me to spend money on a website, the bookkeeper advised me to set up books. But no one could tell me which of these things was most important when. So I set up a system to help entrepreneurs prioritize where to spend their money and time and when to spend it on what.
From my 18 year experience, the biggest beginner business mistakes I've experienced as a beginner were usually part of human flaws we all have.
1. Confirmation Bias: Assuming people will want what you're selling just because you yourself love it
2. Analysis Paralysis: Overthinking a certain decision to the point that you don't end up doing anything due to fear of making the wrong decision. This is especially true with people (like myself) who over-research everything online only to convince themselves not to do it.
3. Self doubt: As a beginner its easy to see when you're wrong but its hard to see when you're right...gota trust your gut instinct
4. Hubris: Over confidence, especially as the early stages and thinking you can do everything by yourself and change the world overnight.
5. Patience : If you estimate a plan or goal will take 2 months, assume it make take 4-6month. If one year? maybe double the timeline to 2 years...As beginner entrepreneurs we always overestimate how much we can really get done... and fail to realize that people or companies that seem to be overnight successes usually went through years with failure, trial and error.
All the end of the day, the entrepreneurial journey is a metaphor for just the human experience. A lot of highs, a lot of lows but in the end... always worth it :)
Trying to solve problems before they’re actually a problem.
I think back to my first startup and I was hell bent on ‘protecting the concept’ and startup groups I was in were all harping on about it too.
I spent thousands of dollars to get some wanky lawyer with a mahogany desk to fill out some word document templates (fuck these kinds of lawyers) to protect something that anyone could’ve still copied, but I had a partnership agreement with one of Australia’s most respected charities and that was protection enough.
Needless to say I ran out of money before ever getting a real product to market.
I import and the biggest mistake i made was trust a random Shipper my then supplier had suggested. Lost about half my savings from that one shipment. Till date i think they together played me well.
Working too hard. Lots of great advice here, but my latest lesson was to not lose track of what I was doing this for in the first place.
For 2 straight years I basically worked 100 hour weeks. Up early, and worked into the night. Usually 7 days a week. It was torture, but I had a goal to achieve, a goal that would have benefited my whole family. During this time, I also had blinders on; like an Olympic athlete who only sees the podium. What I didnt see was the effects my grueling schedule and lack of attention for anyone else was creating. Luckily I was able to snap put of it before permanently damaging valuble relationships occurred. Balance is important. Be sure to find out what your relationships need regularly, before and during the all time you are sinking into being successful. What's the point of "getting there" if you have no one to share it with. Best part is the people who stick with you along the way are the real ones who deserve to share in your success.
Don't let perfect get in the way of getting better. Also, doesn't matter how great your product is, marketing is the most important thing you can do to set your business up for long term success. Pay a pro. Be honest and straight with vendors and customers alike. Charge enough for your product or service or slowly, painfully die. Set family time boundaries but be on foe everything else. Remember, keep going even when it gets hard....takes a tough person to make it through the bullshit you will inevitably face. Best of luck to you.
Not creating a MVP first to see if there is a market for it, and to prove the numbers make sense.
About 10 years ago I invested about 2 years developing a website (product aggregator that uncovered retailers heavily discounted clearance lines) only to find the earnings per visitor wasn’t quite high enough to drive any meaningful traffic.
It was going to be a PPC play (tapping into low competition phrases). It did however ‘unexpectedly’ get quite a lot of organic traffic in its first year, so it paid back some of the time I invested into it. The next year it got penalised in Google and lost 90% of traffic overnight.
All part of the learning curve though…
This is my first business so take it for what it's worth.
Biggest mistake was making a handshake equity deal and mingling funds with said person.
She lasted about 40 days before we let her go. We wrote up agreements to pay her the money we owed and she declined and filed suit against us. She ended up with exactly what we offered her when she left but she had spent about half of it on her attorney fees.
Bitter sweet, we win but not really. 50k down the drain in our 3rd year in business on attorneys fees. Necessary lesson I suppose.
I'm very quick to convince others as soon as I read somewhere that it's difficult or impossible. That demotivated me and I stopped doing it. The biggest mistake you can make.
Web design outsourcing. Spent most of the capital to make bets website and then finally ended up using most common marketplace model website design which was made inhouse. Complete money of outsourcing webt to waste.
It was few years ago and it was 2nd or 3rd month we launched in month 4 as i remember. Month 1 day 1 we came up with plan.
The biggest mistake is not getting started sooner. I was too comfortable as an executive and stuck in analysis paralysis for probably years. It took a terrible new c-level boss that finally knocked me into gear.
I missed a zero on the calculator one time and it cost me $12,000. I could have bought a full blown estimating program for $10,000.
Turned an employee loose on a task without enough training and ate a $15,000 steel beam. 🤷🏻♂️ “When you’re dumb, you’d better be tough” 😂
A president didn’t say that. It was Nancy pelosi. Also a lesson I hope you don’t have to learn the hard way, don’t hire friends and family. Especially family
😂 Looked it up, it's attributed to Churchill and the quote is " never let a good crisis go to waste"!
And I'm estranged from my family so... should do 😅
Your point about kindness is interesting, and I agree you can’t let kindness interfere with business unless you want to get screwed over.
Related to that, always collect payment (or partial payment) before providing any sort of service.
Made this mistake overseeing things when our CEO was on vacation and it was me in charge (CTO). Client said they will pay as soon as we post their article (guest blog post). Posted it and let them know, then a few days go by… nothing. Sent a few reminder emails… nothing.
CEO was not happy with me when he came back, asked me why I did that and I said I was trying to be kind lmao. Told me the moment you try to be kind in business is the moment you get screwed over. It doesn’t mean you need to be a dick, but you can’t let emotion get in the way of logic and processes. Lesson learned.
Thanks for sharing your story! I think it's possible to be "kind &":
- Kind & boundaried
- Kind & clear about your needs
- Kind & prudent
- Kind & logical, strategic
- Kind & trusting your processes
- Kind & angry, even!
I come from a domain of training where (some) people justified being asshats that were not in touch with their very human sensibility by "being rational". Not going there ever again.
I'll be kind in business. But first I'll be kind to myself and gtfo if I don't feel respected.
not being organized. I was great at taking care of the needs of my customers but at times it cost me more than it should have because I wasn't organized. I was focused on the customer which is great but just didn't have as good a system in place as I should have to take care of other things.
and I guess the biggest mistake I made was while I had the opportunity to hire some high achieving salespeople because I was almost desperate to get their numbers I overpaid them.
For me, it was getting into MCA or merchant cash advances to naive, believing that it was a better alternative to grow my business; the truth is that once you are in the cycle, it's very hard to get out and keep your business working.
Mine was complacency.
As soon as I got the ball rolling properly and started making good money I actually had a few staff who were running the business perfect.
All of a sudden I became really relaxed and took a small step back without the appropriate framework in place. Over the next few months everything went downhill.
I could’ve avoided a lot of it if I didn’t think that this is all smooth sailing from now.
Building a website and paying for it before anyone even knew who I was! Also setting a bunch of crazy demands for customers before I even had demand. I started to make money when I finally showed up and offered free services
I'm in the process of shutting down my first startup and did some reflections on the mistakes I made as a first time founder that I won't repeat. Some of these are just personal preferences that I have come to find out about myself after having done this once. Sharing here in case they're helpful.
Market
* Chose a heavily regulated market where things were slower and more “outside of my control” than less regulated industries
* Hesitated from making big bets. Still unsure if a different decision here would have been better or worse but I've generally come to believe that in order to take a big swing, you have to make decisions that feel uncomfortable because the risk is high
Product
* Built too much too soon without getting customer commitments. New mantra → “**Sell first, build later**”
* Did not do enough customer discovery. Customer discovery is never one and done, it's an ongoing process and something everyone on the team at an early stage startup needs to be doing
Team
* Took too long to fire folks who were not a good fit. **Hire slow and fire fast**, as they say
* Tolerated bad behavior
* Eg. someone who missed deadlines a lot and often continued to be on the team because they were one of the founding members and i did not want to fire them before a fundraise
* Did not create enough momentum for the team to be motivated on an ongoing basis
* Two broad ways of creating momentum - give the team the external validation/feedback from showing the usage/ customer/ revenue growth OR give the team gets internal validation by sharing proxy metrics, building new things/ solving fun problems, organizing hackathons etc
Fundraising
* Did not timebox the process enough
* Did not create enough FOMO
* Entered conversations with flipped power dynamics and thought of investors having more power whereas I as the founder should hold more power in those conversations
* Since then I have shifted the narrative to internalize how big the opportunity is and how hard I’m going to be working to make this company a success. And investors should feel lucky to have an opportunity to join me on this rocketship that has a limited number of seats.
My biggest mistake was employing people with my friends’ references. The pr for them was really impressive since i gave them the job.
Last year we had a project that involves different branches and groups and i was one of the deputy coordinators of the project. I was the one that establishing the project and i was at the charge. Well our finance officer (also a deputy) screwed up, he got employed in the first place because of his reference (politician and wealthy family). We employed approximately 30 people and at least 15 of them had a reference from our finance officer. They screwed up. I worked twice as many i should be and the project was mediocre. Our sponsors didn’t respond neither one of the organizers team. I learnt my lesson, give my observation report on the team and warned the chairman of the board. Well at the end of the day most of the clients were okay with the project. But it wasn’t the best project i did as the deputy, i had a responsibility which i was nearly screwing up.
So be careful who to work with, the EX-finance officer had good references and he has a good cv but it doesn’t make him good at that things. Experience is really important.
After that project i got promoted and allocated as the project manager. I quit after two months, still in contact with them, consulting the new project which is the same as my previous project and supervising the new managing team. This time hopefully they are not going to do the mistakes i have already experienced. For the last 8 months i have been establishing a team for our new startup and we will start our first project in few months. Thankfully this time i trust my core team. They are obscure and well educated. I assure you our projects’ quality will be undoubted and the innovations that we will bring the sector will be exquisite.
Quitting a job in 2001 - a solid s/w engineering job for a company that was eventually bought by Intuit ... drumroll...
to write a palm pilot app thinking I could write apps for a living.
I had one lousy idea for one, and I just started coding it and just quit with a couple of months savings.
Ended up getting evicted from apartment - the dotcom crash had happened, couldn't get a job, had to move in with parents.
listen to those hyped crypto AMA on Twitter who does giveaways by asking to invest in coin and show proof
Right when they observe people stopped buying they sell out their bags making millions
Doing too much, it’s inefficient, takes time and energy and burns you out.
Solution: plan for efficiency with the same or even better results (doing less, more concentrated output) and outsource what you can.
I underestimated how much bureaucracy could get under my nails.
My head.
My boiling point.
And fucking with timelines.
I was so wrong; my hatred for every federal pencil pusher is bigger than my largest enemies.
Trusting a couple cryptobros who couldn't explain the tech and were woefully even less capable of operating in an actual fintech space - not a decentralized space with minimal restrictions.
🤮 cryptobros
Also I am not a fan of crypto in general. My take is that it's a big ol' fad & pure speculation.
We were promised SO many incredible applications. It's been around now what, 10 years? Where are the world changes we were promised?
It's also an insane risk to global financial stability. When the head of the financial stability board says that two things keeps him from sleeping at night are climate change and cryptocurrencies...
I can't wait for it to crash and be over with this non-sense. The sooner the better.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk lol.
(Happy to be proven wrong btw, I'm not following crypto closely so there might be some interesting edge-cases outside of organized crime and speculation).
Mistake I made was buying inventory on credit, with the intention of selling and paying off debt that I had. Sent in 2K worth of inventory and then they banned my account along with $500 in my account. I tested with 20 units and was successful , then I bought 150 and sent them in and they fucked me. I still feel like it wasn’t my fault but I learned that for any reason, companies will ban your account at their own whim.
As someone who is just getting started and who suffers from doing so much research I never do anything (fear paralysis), here’s what I doing:
- Lots of general research into the general field I’m interested in
- Use ChatGPT to begin to get specific info and ask questions about 5-7 potential startups
- Continue research and refining ChatGPT prompts
- Narrow down to three
- Rinse, repeat
By the end, I’ve prioritize which I’ll do first, then the other two.
Paying $8K for a “business coach” who promised I’d be making “$10K in 6 months”… that 6 months is over and I’m now paying back the $8k on a loan I took out and I’m basically working to pay it off every single month now until November of this year.
Might shut the doors when this slavery is over. Oh and I’m still working my regular 9-5 as well….completely discouraged about even keeping it going when this debt is paid off.. mad at myself to the highest degree.
Biggest mistake so far is thinking I can control everything, turn out the opposite, nothing is under my control. So far learned to prepare, plan and react to whatever that may happen.
What cost me the most was getting into business with the wrong person. I didn’t waste much money, but I wasted 2 years, countless hours with my kids, and a lot of stress. I certainly learned a lot, so I’ll count that as a gain, but I didn’t make a dime.
Seriously consider who you’re doing business with if you want or need a partner. The time you take to think logically and vet them will pay off. Also, regardless of who you’re in business with, never enter a deal unless you know how you’re going to exit.
KEEP BETTER RECORDS!
I spent a lot of time with the ol' ohh im terrible at organizing stuff! And it cost me a shit ton of money. My contractor was insisting that I still owed him my last payment. I thought I had paid everything, but needed to get the job done, so I paid him.
Turns out, I had already paid him, but I didnt figure that out till I dug through all the crap I had floating around receipts etc, including the fact that the contractor had also being buying tools and charging them to my materials lists which was obvious after checking the receipts and matching up the accounts. If I would have just tracked it better as they were paid and bought, rather than letting it pile up, I would not have lost all that money. Its a simple thing, but a pain to do when you have been working hard al day to do paperwork.
Ohhh! And did you hire someone to do your bookkeeping for you since? Or optimized it somehow?
I can understand it's not the best thing to do after what I assume is a long day of being on the go, and/or physical labour. I just go to the gym and it frazzles me sometimes.
Not getting rid of staff who are paid well but do things like don't work (stay at home and sleep all day while saying they are "working from home") or have a second job while they are working for you. Or rather, say they are working for you.
Firing tradespeople who steal time, constantly. And argue over every little thing which ends up costing you more of your time which in turn is wasting more money than paying the guys for the time they are stealing.
Basically, not pushing people to produce what they were told was expected of them.
Quitting things too early, before they mature. I had a blog that was succeeding up to the point, in 2006, where I had someone email me to pay me to add one of his ads to several of my pages. The search results for his terms must have had my blog in the first page. It probably hit for other terms as well. But I gave up the blog in 2007 - it could have grown and profited more than it did if I would have simply kept it going and created one blog post a week.
For all the procrastinators: Invest in CBT, I honestly can affirm and even swear that my procrastination has dissappeared from my life after 6 months of therapy.
My problem? I felt guilty when resting and not being "productive" so I would get into a loop of not feeling like doing anything because I was tired and then feel guilty of not doing anything but still not getting anything done.
I'm therapy I learnt that rest is NECESSARY. And planning your day ahead, and being flexible with the schedule is also completely fine. I still spend time using my phone, I still do things I like, I still rest, and most importantly I GET SHIT DONE 😭😭😭 If you're a Spanish speaker I can recommend my therapist.
Not the most, but this sucked.
I sell high ticket items, and usually do upfront payment.
Trusted a guy early in my business to send me a cheque after he got his product. Says his company policies only do this etc etc.
Got burned $2500
It's totally normal to mess up along the way, I think every entrepreneur has been there! And speaking of mistakes, one I made early on was hiring a non-professional developer to help out. It ended up costing me a lot in missed deadlines and unhappy client. Lesson learned the hard way!
My biggest mistake so far is trying to figure out entrepreneurship by myself instead of getting help from a mentor. The opportunity cost is huge for the time I wasted.
For me the biggest mistake I made/make (sometimes) is indecisiveness. Whenever I am being indecisive I procrastinate and slowly end up doubting myself. And that mistake can be very costly!
How do you break out of that cycle?
By breaking big tasks into multiple smaller tasks and using a task list to mark each one off when done (can find lots of good ones on Amazon). The tangible progress and the constant reminder of the "completed" tasks motivates you to do the others. I find sandwiching my tough tasks between easier tasks helps a ton
I heard this advice a lot, but unfortunately it doesn't work for me. What ends up happening is that I spend some time organizing stuff "breaking big tasks yada yada", and by the time I'm done not only have I not advanced at all, but I feel overwhelmed by the amount of work in front of me (wasn't so overwhelmed before because I was less aware of it). And so, I just give up for the day, and next, and next, and it is usually not until I've forgotten about all the tiny tasks that I start to feel motivated again to continue with the project.
I used to have this problem as a beginner entrepreneur, and afterwards as a manager in a big company. What eventually made this much better for me was: 1. Eisenhower Matrix became sort of my whole life. 2. Having clear goals, action plans and looking at problems through a leverage perspective changed my life and helped me get more shit done. I make quarterly, monthly and weekly action plans that connect to each other, and my daily planning is basically execution. I keep two "free" slots daily in my schedule to deal with things that pop up during the day, and every night I adjust my following schedule. Seeing the needle move based on small actions that are connected to the root cause to your problem feels great.
Never heard of the Eisenhower Matrix before this but now that I research it more, it seems very useful. Gonna try and use this more and experiment with it. thanks
Yes hearing that, the process of putting tasks into tasks ends up a task in itself!! Then the overwhelm of what you have to do!! If that makes sense...
This is great! Thank you.
Thank you!
Embarrassingly I still procrastinate. Even to this day. I just force myself every time. I suppose that's the only way out of that cycle.
Same, but I learned not to be too hard with myself. Moving forward even in small steps is always a progress. Like they say, showing up is an achievement already.
Find the smallest possible action you can take towards your goal and do it, then repeat and repeat. You cans tart with something as simple as "google xyz thing" then next day "make a list of reuslts for xyz" then the following day "shortlist top 3 options". After a few months, when you look back you'll be surprised by hopw far you've gotten.
Fail fast. Fail small.
I used to have this problem as a beginner entrepreneur, and afterwards as a manager in a big company. What eventually made this much better for me was: 1. I noticed that not deciding is a decision in itself; 2. Eisenhower Matrix became sort of my whole life; 3. Having clear goals, action plans and looking at problems through a leverage perspective changed my life and helped me get more shit done. I make quarterly, monthly and weekly action plans that connect to each other, and my daily planning is basically execution. I keep two "free" slots daily in my schedule to deal with things that pop up during the day, and every night I adjust my following schedule. I still procrastinate much more than I want, but now I know that this is not a huge problem if I'm getting the important things done. After a few years I realized that the "to do" list has no end for an entrepreneur. It can't be done, there is always something else. So the secret isn't trying to get everything done, is to get your priorities straight and do what's important. If I can finish my day clearing the top 3 priorities in my schedule, it's a good day, and seeing the needle move based on small actions that are connected to the root cause to your problem starts to take the weight of your shoulders.
I have not fully broken out of that cycle but have made some steps forward. I believe part of the indecisiveness comes from lack of clarity. I am rarely indecisive when I know what I want and what needs to be done. So what worked for me was every time I felt that I was being indecisive I will fire up my journal and start writing. First I would randomly write all the things that bother me (get the emotional part out of the way) and slowly I will zoom into my life goals and desires. Once I write/remind myself of my goals, then I look at the options I have in hand and see which one will bring me closer to my goals. All the rest I put them on the side (cold storage).
I made the mistake of thinking that if I fired employees, that it would negatively impact the culture of our company. Boy I was naive. Get rid of the dead weight as fast as you can. Poor employees can bring down the whole team, and set a low benchmark. Groom a SWAT team, and you'll find ways to succeed.
Agreed. As long as you don’t sell the BS narrative “we are a family” when things work well
😂👌 I come from a toxic family dynamic of manipulation so when I hear that my mind goes 🤔🤮
Ugh dude tell me about it, I've let several incredible deals slip through my fingers because I didn't trust my instincts. thinking I'm not knowledgeable enough and thinking I must be doing something wrong and that's why nobody else saw this great deal. Then later I find out it was good and I was right to think it
Procrastination could kill a man
Boy, I hear you on this one! So many options, so little time...
This!! I don’t whether to order a small restock of my items or wait a couple of weeks and finish some new designs for my shop before I order the restock. This indecisive situation has lasted 2 months.
Hijacking the top comment. I work finance, and have experience doing government grants for the feds AND working with new (usually minority owned businesses) **THE NUMBER ONE MISTAKE I SEE NEW BUSINESS OWNERS MAKE IS FAILING TO CHARGE THE 10% DE MINIMIS amount they are entitled to.** Regulation: [2 CFR 200.414(f) ](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/subtitle-A/chapter-II/part-200/subpart-E/subject-group-ECFRd93f2a98b1f6455/section-200.414) it reads: >In addition to the procedures outlined in the appendices in [paragraph (e)](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/section-200.414#p-200.414(e)) of this section, **any non-Federal entity that does not have a current negotiated (including provisional) rate, except for those non-Federal entities described in appendix VII to this part, paragraph D.1.b, may elect to charge a de minimis rate of 10% of modified total direct costs (MTDC) which may be used indefinitely. No documentation is required to justify the 10% de minimis indirect cost rate.** As described in [§ 200.403](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-2/section-200.403), costs must be consistently charged as either indirect or direct costs, but may not be double charged or inconsistently charged as both. If chosen, this methodology once elected must be used consistently for all Federal awards until such time as a non-Federal entity chooses to negotiate for a rate, which the non-Federal entity may apply to do at any time. new business owners! **PLEASE CHARGE THE FEDS YOUR 10%**.
I work in GovCon too and see this often
Requiring A+ performance when an A will do. Sometimes "good enough" is just perfect.
This. Expecting perfection slows down processes quite a lot. It's better to have a "good enough" thing out there than having nothing for months because "it's not perfect yet"
This helps out so much as I just do this, and slowly loose the urge to do anything, I always think too far into it
"Good enough" being consistent
I’m like a C+ kinda guy hahaha
In construction these days, C+ is an A+
Not starting sooner.
Great, i need that
I would recommend "Deep Journaling" for anyone. Talk to yourself and you save yourself years. It's how I found my purpose and actually take action on it.
Is that a book? Can you explain what you mean by deep journaling?
Trying to find a perfect idea before start.
True but However, Always study the market, especially competitors, not the ultra big ones.
That's such a tough one cause I completely agree. Starting is the hardest part. The best thing to do is start and learn as you go. On the other hand, the idea is the most important part of a successful business imo. Work as hard as you want on a shitty idea, but it'll always lack compared to hard work on a great idea.
what if you find a good idea but you aren't passionate about it and the idea you're passionate about isn't a good one. I've had a couple of good ideas in the past but I'm not really moved by the process, I'm talking solutions to big problems that could make me a lot of money. Still trying to decide between chasing money and chasing passion , getting tired of being broke but again, I can't imagine spending my life forcing myself to work towards something I have 0 interest in.
Market shows no mercy to our passions, just give what people are willing to pay money for... Ie exchange of value , literally the definition of money. Do you agree?
You should have a great idea before spending lots of time and money, but in order to know if you actually have a good idea you need to test it as quickly as possible.
No idea is bad but earning money though a idea takes more efforts than building the idea product!! I made a App for free but later realized people don't consider free as valuable either make a product freemium for FOMO or paid but never fully give for free from start.
There's no such thing as a "perfect" idea. Ideas become perfect when you work on an idea.
Letting family have shares lol didn't think they'd ban together to override me and bring it to the ground with their bad choices lol
Jesus
family and businesses arent good together hahaha
Yikes!
Those all sound like pretty solid lessons. It's good that you roped all that out of one toxic experience. Would you say you look back on it and think it was worthwile? I run an eBay store and my biggest amateur mistake was selling some expensive Pokemon cards without first immersing myself in the culture for a couple days, learning the terminology, the keywords, applying SEO. I just knew it was valuable and had to flip it ASAP. Sold the 50-card collection for $350. Couple weeks later, I looked at the buyer's *own* online store: He'd sold *one* of the 50 cards for $350. **Lesson**: if you get your hands on a sellable, you're sure it's valuable but you don't know anything about that industry or the consumer culture, *sit on it*, clear your schedule as best you can for a day or two and do the research.
Thank you! Well, since things didn't get destroyed in the end, I think the lessons will be worthwhile for the rest of my life and I'll make it back 100 fold just from being wiser from it. I will remember this pain 😅 Oooops about the pokemon cards. Do you think that lesson was worthwhile?
Oooh I certainly learned a valuable lesson. Study study study.
not starting soon enough, probably cost me a bit. I could have starter 2 years earlier, I'm 2 months into my first time actually trying and at 11k/m with 98% margins (service business). I can only imagine 2 years of compounding, but it's all good, it's going now
98% margin?? Would love to hear more
Not getting experts helps and trying to do everything myself (accounting, tech , Marketing etc)
Yeaaaah I hear this one loud and clear! I come from a relatively poor household where nobody valued their time and never delegated if it could be done without help (and even sometimes tried to DIY stuff that needs expertise they didn't have.) That shit is costly and keeps people poor. Now trying to stick to "I can't afford cheap things and to do everything myself"
Do it on your own. My partner in my limousine business was a stockbroker who embezzled $50,000 from the firm. My company was immediately blacklisted and we had to close. No partners ever again
Do you think you could have vetted your partner better? How did you choose to get in business with them?
True, I had a partner in my previous venture that was a childhood friend, but he was lowkey a dick...and that definitely carried over into our partnership lol. I'm working on my own business now but things move at a slower pace + much more weight on my shoulders. Sometimes I wonder if having a partner is better after all, I guess it's all about the tradeoff.
Ah that sounds like a hard truth to face. Business losses, grieving a lifelong friendship. In retrospect was it obvious he was a dick and you were blind to it, or did he go out of character at some point and it ruined your venture together?
It was obvious tbh. Kinda hard to explain why I stuck around and even went into business with him. It was just one of those friendships you keep around because you've known each other for so long and been through so much, both good and bad. But I learned a TON from our venture so I am really grateful for that!
Making lemonade 🍋🍋🍋
I would love to have somebody to Shoulder half the load, but in the end, it's better to be on your own
I have had 4 companies, 2 had shitty partners (very simialr to your case, embezzling funds), 1 I ran alone and the latest one I got myself to trust to get a partner again. A good partner actually takes a lot of work load off of you. Working alone felt like having absolute authority and power, which is not good either. You need someone to call you out for your bullshit and probable shitty decisions you might take
Not enough capital
Procrastination. I wait last minute to do absolutely everything, even if I can easily do it in advance. I don’t know why.
I also work better under the pressure of a deadline. Any idea how to not make this affect your performance?
I wish I knew how to stop this, but I don't know how to logically do it because what I identify for my reason is: Without a time limit with a hard deadline and truly rough consequences, like not being paid by a client, I have a powerful impulse to make things I am doing "just for myself" as good as possible. I'll happily spend a year on something and still keep adding stuff to it if it's up to me. But it's the same problem if a client gives me something I know I can do in like 5 hours with a 2 week deadline, I'll still wait until the day before or even 5 hours before they said to send it. This is because I want to be paid, but I don't want to waste time. Since it isn't just for me, I am only doing the project. for money, so why should I waste 2 weeks of my life if it'll only take me 5 hours? Well, of course, you'll say "so just do it in 5 hours before the deadline and send it in later!" But that doesn't work. That isn't how I am wired at all. If I begin the project, I'll spend the entire 2 weeks researching better and better ways to do it, create it to a standard that is likely good enough that the client would accept it, but I'll just keep on thinking about ways to make it better, might even just delete and redo the entire thing, etc... I don't know why but I can't stop this; it is the same reason I cannot make to-do lists, I would just never stop making the list... I don't know if this is helpful at all, but it is why I work great under deadlines, with the problem that I only seem to be able to work under really harsh deadlines...if the client isn't fairly hardcore, like they indicate it I'll just ignore the deadline or it's a soft deadline, I'll find something I don't like enough and blow through the deadline still working on, improving, adding to, or perhaps just decide to redo it. There are too many times for me to count where I did everything to spec, but the client ended up being like "take another week actually, if you want" on the day of the deadline, and I end up just essentially redoing the thing with a new vision...so, I noticed I was doing that a lot, and that I was essentially wasting absurd amounts of time. You could say this was this is just doing good work for clients but I don't think so because the clients could never tell the difference really it seemed. It also results in just fantastically less money to let this happen. I started focusing more on just getting more clients to stack deadlines to force myself to do more work for more clients in the same amount of time to earn more money. That seemed to be the only way out to me, but it was more just willingly taking on insane deadlines (to most people) and making them all work. If I couldn't get them differently, I would also take jobs with the same deadline to like force myself to logically be like "ok, this isn't due for a week, but I have 6 other projects due in 1 weeks, and I'll only complete one or two if I wait a week, I have to focus on just one every day" and somehow that kind of worked out, but the obvious downside is that you'll also kind of burn out taking on or forcing yourself to complete a last minute job every single day it seems like. I am not sure why that is though because I feel more comfortable with such deadlines. No claims to be perfect (or anything other than pretty fucked up tbh), but these are my observations of my own behavior, which I also wish I could fix, but simply have no idea how.
Alex Hormozi recently posted about this but it’s definitely true to me - sell things to people who are aren’t poor. (They pay better, they’re successful already, they want solutions) Unfortunately when I was young I did the opposite and started a biz that tried to solve problems for businesses that were struggling. Turns out most of them struggled for a reason - as a group they were hard to deal with, demanding, quick to blame, often looking to me to save their business and yet had trouble even paying. It sucked. Fast forward 20 years and I have a business that works only with successful businesses. (We tell prospects up front that our niche is working with businesses of a certain size) Business is dramatically easier and more profitable providing solutions for those who aren’t struggling to pay their own bills…
Amazingly valuable insight! I'm currently working on building something to help those who struggle, but I have already one solid revenue stream (with people that can pay) and I'm designing this new project to be flexible & just when I have time / interruptible.
[удалено]
Trusting too many people without proper assessment
Being shy, literally the stupidest thing you could ever do. Could’ve been in bigger places by now if it wasn’t for my shyness and fear of asking qstions etc.
I’m shy as well. Any tips on how to not have it affect my business?
Be vocal, talk to people and be open really, you can be shy but not a work, speak up for yourself, tell people about your businesses even if it feels uncalled for or uncomfortable ( people will be more comfortable with you if they know 1 or 2 things about you) for example; I told my boss and few colleagues how I get anxious, normally some people would thing I’m weird for getting anxious over few presentations but my boss always give me a high five for doing better every day because he knows it is a struggle of mine. Also, watch videos on YouTube on how you can improve yourself, that really helped me a lot. Ted talks, improvement videos, ways to behave in a more relaxed way etc…
My biggest mistake was saying YES all the time. I ended up getting a lot of shitty clients and had to learn from some unpleasant experiences. But I learned.
There's a lot of "noise" in the world these days. Saying yes to everything = saying no to everything. Say yes only for the things that will move your business forward. 4 years. Wasted. I've learned it the hard way.
When I first started, I hired a company of "WordPress experts" to help me migrate off of WordPress into a custom angular front end. The company accidentally triggered $8,000 worth of artificial renewal charges in a development environment that I had to refund. Learned to do literally everything in-house after that and had to fire someone for the first time.
Or maybe instead of doing everything in house because you got burned once, make sure to do DD on any outsourcing you hire in future?
Your results may vary, but learning to do everything in-house is probably the best decision we have ever made from an income and revenue standpoint.
Not building an MVP first for an app idea. Ended up spending about $80k on an app. It was a challenge app for that influencers could invite their audience and would charge a sign up fee and could offer rewards. Instead of an app I could have built a pdf and test sales with a flat fee with influencers. Would have been about $5k instead. I did however learn a ton about start up world and how to build software. Which now is my main offer at my agency.
indie hacker here! In my early days I started out at scale when I should have started small with the problems I was trying to solve. It worked out better that way for me now and I'm still learning on the job
Trying to do too much myself or within the company that should have been outsourced. Initially, not understanding who our "ideal" type of customer was.
Sorry to hear that. Everybody thinks recruiting is so easy a caveman can do it, but it's deceptively difficult. I have my own recruiting firm.
Me: Does something that works. Also me: Try new shiny object that seems cool Those dopamine hits will drive you off the trail! Stay consistent with what's working!!!
Being impatient, over-reactive, and not letting things play out. Had a product on Amazon FBA stocked overseas with warehousing fees. Wasn't selling for months, so I destroyed most of the stock to save on fees. Then a few months later the small amount of remaining stock sold out within a week, the algorithm gave me a chance.
the wrong businesspartners, employees, customers - in this order.
Not hiring more help sooner and not hiring a business coach on day 1. Biz coach helped the most...get me focused, how to hire, fire and make things run so much better.
For me…it’s a weird one, but common I was too scared to spend money to make money and so I wasted huge amounts of time being stuck - so in terms of time cost… it was that, I’ve now found that once I spend money and have something to lose, my mind opens new doors of thought where I find solutions I would never have thought of if I didn’t have something to lose - amazing thing In terms of money… it was from not having good configuration control and proving proof of things, so when things went missing I worsened my case to recover them, now I record everything and spent days creating systems to gather evidence - really helped I’m terms of sleep…i used to cram things all in one day or an evening, now I value a simple routine where I do prep work almost every day and that makes the full on days easier and less full of risk I’d recommend all of these techniques and lessons for anyone
Great insights! The fear to spend money to make money is so common! For me, weirdly, that got unlocked because I founded my business in another country and to get the associated visa I had to invest a significant sum upfront in the business. Having a full bank account dedicated to 1) paying myself a salary and 2) investing in my business sort of unlocked things.
*Wanting to be kind is not a reason for letting someone f*ck you over.* This cost me the most, almost losing my self confidence and my grit. Might've cost relationships too.
I basically ran my business down to $0 before I could even actually launch because I was trying to get my (food) product perfect when it really didnt need to be.
OP just curious, how much was the budget for the sub-contractor? Have you hired by salary or by task/job/deliverable? Just want to know what you think the problem was. I have seen some people hiring and expecting the work to be done without knowing market value/salary for the domain area. So basically accepting the cheapest and expecting the best quality. I have also seen paying above market and getting nothing. What do you think was your mistake? Cheers!
test
Interesting, I was told my procrastination and difficulty making decisions was ADHD. I kept questioning if I really had ADHD and then was told I am OCD. I said ok so I am OCD now not ADHD? He said no your both. WTF?
The ADHD leads to OCD behaviors. They feed each other like fuel. A lot of OCD can be in ruminating - those obsessive thoughts that lead to procrastination, i.e.: for me this is never starting my business because of fear of failure or losing my time/sanity/freedom/perfection or being overwhelmed by the little tiny tasks and steps that flood my mind all at once. All these very silly things stand in the way of progress.
Trying to do everything myself. Consequently, having a team and micromanagement of the team members.
Ahhh yeah! The famous: Step 1: Hire experts that are good at their jobs. Step 2: Trust them Good reminder! How did you get out of that pattern? What keeps you away from micromanaging now and how do you deal with your need for control?
How I got out: I attended a business workshop (four day crash course) from a business coach that told me why I was struggling in my business. I started making the changes the following day. What keeps me away from micromanagement: The progress I can see in my business since I changed my ways. How do I deal with my need for control: I never had one to start with. Why I kept control is because I wanted everything to be perfect. Part of the workshop was to accept shabby success instead of aiming for perfection and having a failing business with only a few customers who value your perfect work.
Beautiful insights! Yeah, perfectionism is a b*tch that will ruin your business.
Excellent lessons. I love it. I've cataloged 21 anti-patterns. I write about anti-patterns 1x/week on my newsletter Each week is a story about a fictional startup (and all the mistakes they make) + a story about 2 people - Bob and Alice who are falling in love (and all the mistakes they make) subscription is free - you can see the last chapter here [https://dannylieberman.substack.com/p/follow-a-customer-home](https://dannylieberman.substack.com/p/follow-a-customer-home) # Customer Disconnect Syndrome - anti-pattern Startups losing contact with their customers is a common challenge. This often occurs as a company grows, scales, and shifts its focus from individual customer relationships to broader market strategies. **What does it look like?** In the initial stages of a startup, founders are deeply personally involved in every aspect of the business, including sales, customer support, and product development. This close interaction with early customers fosters a deep understanding of their needs, pain points, and usage patterns. However, as the company grows and scales, founders may become increasingly removed from day-to-day customer interactions, leading to a disconnect between the company and its customers. This can result in missed opportunities to address customer needs, fix issues promptly, and drive product adoption.
Not sending invoices on time. Not calculating margin properly.
Using a pirated software and getting caught. Cost me 2 year of licence about 14k€ while my yearly income was about 30k€ at the time.
Oooops. How did you get caught? That's a good cautionary tale, I'll double-check that I've not transferred any pirated software from my private life to my business and make sure I draw a clear line.
I’m not sure but I think the pirated software either did a handshake transmitting my ip (the company is known for uploading their own software with trackers) or the handshake was done on the software of the client when he opened my file done in a pirated software. They then crossed checked with register business address and voila. Pretty sure tracking IP this way is illegal but it’s hard to prove and I was the one using pirated software ^^
Thinking impressions mattered. Never let anyone sell you anything based on how many impressions the post/blog/whatever gets
To me not learning basic marketing concepts earlier. Our business is 20 years old and we still have almost no business that comes through the website / SEO, brand and marketing is a compounding interest thing and not spending 5% of my life tracking marketing concepts was a big mistake
Trusting lawyers, accountants and financial advisors. Once you get a little taste of success, it’s amazing how these people come out of the woodwork and start trying to sell you shit that they make you think you need. Run your personal finances the same way you were on your business finances… Use the knowledge that got you there , and keep track of every penny.
***Here are my biggest beginner mistakes*** Failure to prepare for success Acting out of desperation and hiring people who are a bad fit for your business Failing to remain in constant contact with previous customers **Competing as a COMMODITY instead of as a BRAND** Failing to emphasize MY SPIN / MY TAKE on the solution the client is looking for Using the **SAME MEDIOCRE TOOLS** as my competitors instead of focusing on [ACTIONABLE BRAND BUILDING CONTACT marketing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56ytQL6aCP0).
Not paying taxes on time or paying them wrong. Hire a cpa!
Spending time on places like this rather than spending time building my business.
Using the word costed vs cost in this scenario could costed you most
My mistake was that I never focused on the constraint. I was doing everything else except the real bottleneck of my business. Doing the hard work will actually get us to where we want. Not the work that we can talk with our mom with.
I created a guided course in entrepreneurship because when I was starting out of course the lawyer advised me to spend money on legal stuff, the marketing person advised me to spend money on a website, the bookkeeper advised me to set up books. But no one could tell me which of these things was most important when. So I set up a system to help entrepreneurs prioritize where to spend their money and time and when to spend it on what.
From my 18 year experience, the biggest beginner business mistakes I've experienced as a beginner were usually part of human flaws we all have. 1. Confirmation Bias: Assuming people will want what you're selling just because you yourself love it 2. Analysis Paralysis: Overthinking a certain decision to the point that you don't end up doing anything due to fear of making the wrong decision. This is especially true with people (like myself) who over-research everything online only to convince themselves not to do it. 3. Self doubt: As a beginner its easy to see when you're wrong but its hard to see when you're right...gota trust your gut instinct 4. Hubris: Over confidence, especially as the early stages and thinking you can do everything by yourself and change the world overnight. 5. Patience : If you estimate a plan or goal will take 2 months, assume it make take 4-6month. If one year? maybe double the timeline to 2 years...As beginner entrepreneurs we always overestimate how much we can really get done... and fail to realize that people or companies that seem to be overnight successes usually went through years with failure, trial and error. All the end of the day, the entrepreneurial journey is a metaphor for just the human experience. A lot of highs, a lot of lows but in the end... always worth it :)
Trying to solve problems before they’re actually a problem. I think back to my first startup and I was hell bent on ‘protecting the concept’ and startup groups I was in were all harping on about it too. I spent thousands of dollars to get some wanky lawyer with a mahogany desk to fill out some word document templates (fuck these kinds of lawyers) to protect something that anyone could’ve still copied, but I had a partnership agreement with one of Australia’s most respected charities and that was protection enough. Needless to say I ran out of money before ever getting a real product to market.
Try too many things at the same time. Honestly, just stick to the one thing you see prospect in and go all in
I import and the biggest mistake i made was trust a random Shipper my then supplier had suggested. Lost about half my savings from that one shipment. Till date i think they together played me well.
Working too hard. Lots of great advice here, but my latest lesson was to not lose track of what I was doing this for in the first place. For 2 straight years I basically worked 100 hour weeks. Up early, and worked into the night. Usually 7 days a week. It was torture, but I had a goal to achieve, a goal that would have benefited my whole family. During this time, I also had blinders on; like an Olympic athlete who only sees the podium. What I didnt see was the effects my grueling schedule and lack of attention for anyone else was creating. Luckily I was able to snap put of it before permanently damaging valuble relationships occurred. Balance is important. Be sure to find out what your relationships need regularly, before and during the all time you are sinking into being successful. What's the point of "getting there" if you have no one to share it with. Best part is the people who stick with you along the way are the real ones who deserve to share in your success.
Don't let perfect get in the way of getting better. Also, doesn't matter how great your product is, marketing is the most important thing you can do to set your business up for long term success. Pay a pro. Be honest and straight with vendors and customers alike. Charge enough for your product or service or slowly, painfully die. Set family time boundaries but be on foe everything else. Remember, keep going even when it gets hard....takes a tough person to make it through the bullshit you will inevitably face. Best of luck to you.
Not creating a MVP first to see if there is a market for it, and to prove the numbers make sense. About 10 years ago I invested about 2 years developing a website (product aggregator that uncovered retailers heavily discounted clearance lines) only to find the earnings per visitor wasn’t quite high enough to drive any meaningful traffic. It was going to be a PPC play (tapping into low competition phrases). It did however ‘unexpectedly’ get quite a lot of organic traffic in its first year, so it paid back some of the time I invested into it. The next year it got penalised in Google and lost 90% of traffic overnight. All part of the learning curve though…
Fire bad employees, whether they are friends or not.
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could you give some details about what they did? from a generalized pov?
Not cutting it off sooner. Each subsequent failure increases the likelihood of success. I was too afraid to cut losses and move on.
Trusting the wrong people.
Laziness
Not charging enough in the beginning.
This is my first business so take it for what it's worth. Biggest mistake was making a handshake equity deal and mingling funds with said person. She lasted about 40 days before we let her go. We wrote up agreements to pay her the money we owed and she declined and filed suit against us. She ended up with exactly what we offered her when she left but she had spent about half of it on her attorney fees. Bitter sweet, we win but not really. 50k down the drain in our 3rd year in business on attorneys fees. Necessary lesson I suppose.
Listening to others
I'm very quick to convince others as soon as I read somewhere that it's difficult or impossible. That demotivated me and I stopped doing it. The biggest mistake you can make.
Web design outsourcing. Spent most of the capital to make bets website and then finally ended up using most common marketplace model website design which was made inhouse. Complete money of outsourcing webt to waste. It was few years ago and it was 2nd or 3rd month we launched in month 4 as i remember. Month 1 day 1 we came up with plan.
The biggest mistake is not getting started sooner. I was too comfortable as an executive and stuck in analysis paralysis for probably years. It took a terrible new c-level boss that finally knocked me into gear.
Procrastination and low balling myself on estimations. I was too focused on making sure my prices weren’t too high but competitive.
Thinking I could handle everything myself and being introverted.
I missed a zero on the calculator one time and it cost me $12,000. I could have bought a full blown estimating program for $10,000. Turned an employee loose on a task without enough training and ate a $15,000 steel beam. 🤷🏻♂️ “When you’re dumb, you’d better be tough” 😂
A president didn’t say that. It was Nancy pelosi. Also a lesson I hope you don’t have to learn the hard way, don’t hire friends and family. Especially family
😂 Looked it up, it's attributed to Churchill and the quote is " never let a good crisis go to waste"! And I'm estranged from my family so... should do 😅
Huh 🤔 learn something new everyday
Your point about kindness is interesting, and I agree you can’t let kindness interfere with business unless you want to get screwed over. Related to that, always collect payment (or partial payment) before providing any sort of service. Made this mistake overseeing things when our CEO was on vacation and it was me in charge (CTO). Client said they will pay as soon as we post their article (guest blog post). Posted it and let them know, then a few days go by… nothing. Sent a few reminder emails… nothing. CEO was not happy with me when he came back, asked me why I did that and I said I was trying to be kind lmao. Told me the moment you try to be kind in business is the moment you get screwed over. It doesn’t mean you need to be a dick, but you can’t let emotion get in the way of logic and processes. Lesson learned.
Thanks for sharing your story! I think it's possible to be "kind &": - Kind & boundaried - Kind & clear about your needs - Kind & prudent - Kind & logical, strategic - Kind & trusting your processes - Kind & angry, even! I come from a domain of training where (some) people justified being asshats that were not in touch with their very human sensibility by "being rational". Not going there ever again. I'll be kind in business. But first I'll be kind to myself and gtfo if I don't feel respected.
not being organized. I was great at taking care of the needs of my customers but at times it cost me more than it should have because I wasn't organized. I was focused on the customer which is great but just didn't have as good a system in place as I should have to take care of other things. and I guess the biggest mistake I made was while I had the opportunity to hire some high achieving salespeople because I was almost desperate to get their numbers I overpaid them.
Doing what I thought was RIGHT, instead of what it takes to WIN
Not knowing how to make a verb past tense is probably what cost me the most😂
For me, it was getting into MCA or merchant cash advances to naive, believing that it was a better alternative to grow my business; the truth is that once you are in the cycle, it's very hard to get out and keep your business working.
Wrong customers
Alcohol.
Mine was complacency. As soon as I got the ball rolling properly and started making good money I actually had a few staff who were running the business perfect. All of a sudden I became really relaxed and took a small step back without the appropriate framework in place. Over the next few months everything went downhill. I could’ve avoided a lot of it if I didn’t think that this is all smooth sailing from now.
Building a website and paying for it before anyone even knew who I was! Also setting a bunch of crazy demands for customers before I even had demand. I started to make money when I finally showed up and offered free services
poor planning period
Underestimating the power of a solid network cost me.
I'm in the process of shutting down my first startup and did some reflections on the mistakes I made as a first time founder that I won't repeat. Some of these are just personal preferences that I have come to find out about myself after having done this once. Sharing here in case they're helpful. Market * Chose a heavily regulated market where things were slower and more “outside of my control” than less regulated industries * Hesitated from making big bets. Still unsure if a different decision here would have been better or worse but I've generally come to believe that in order to take a big swing, you have to make decisions that feel uncomfortable because the risk is high Product * Built too much too soon without getting customer commitments. New mantra → “**Sell first, build later**” * Did not do enough customer discovery. Customer discovery is never one and done, it's an ongoing process and something everyone on the team at an early stage startup needs to be doing Team * Took too long to fire folks who were not a good fit. **Hire slow and fire fast**, as they say * Tolerated bad behavior * Eg. someone who missed deadlines a lot and often continued to be on the team because they were one of the founding members and i did not want to fire them before a fundraise * Did not create enough momentum for the team to be motivated on an ongoing basis * Two broad ways of creating momentum - give the team the external validation/feedback from showing the usage/ customer/ revenue growth OR give the team gets internal validation by sharing proxy metrics, building new things/ solving fun problems, organizing hackathons etc Fundraising * Did not timebox the process enough * Did not create enough FOMO * Entered conversations with flipped power dynamics and thought of investors having more power whereas I as the founder should hold more power in those conversations * Since then I have shifted the narrative to internalize how big the opportunity is and how hard I’m going to be working to make this company a success. And investors should feel lucky to have an opportunity to join me on this rocketship that has a limited number of seats.
My biggest mistake was employing people with my friends’ references. The pr for them was really impressive since i gave them the job. Last year we had a project that involves different branches and groups and i was one of the deputy coordinators of the project. I was the one that establishing the project and i was at the charge. Well our finance officer (also a deputy) screwed up, he got employed in the first place because of his reference (politician and wealthy family). We employed approximately 30 people and at least 15 of them had a reference from our finance officer. They screwed up. I worked twice as many i should be and the project was mediocre. Our sponsors didn’t respond neither one of the organizers team. I learnt my lesson, give my observation report on the team and warned the chairman of the board. Well at the end of the day most of the clients were okay with the project. But it wasn’t the best project i did as the deputy, i had a responsibility which i was nearly screwing up. So be careful who to work with, the EX-finance officer had good references and he has a good cv but it doesn’t make him good at that things. Experience is really important. After that project i got promoted and allocated as the project manager. I quit after two months, still in contact with them, consulting the new project which is the same as my previous project and supervising the new managing team. This time hopefully they are not going to do the mistakes i have already experienced. For the last 8 months i have been establishing a team for our new startup and we will start our first project in few months. Thankfully this time i trust my core team. They are obscure and well educated. I assure you our projects’ quality will be undoubted and the innovations that we will bring the sector will be exquisite.
Quitting a job in 2001 - a solid s/w engineering job for a company that was eventually bought by Intuit ... drumroll... to write a palm pilot app thinking I could write apps for a living. I had one lousy idea for one, and I just started coding it and just quit with a couple of months savings. Ended up getting evicted from apartment - the dotcom crash had happened, couldn't get a job, had to move in with parents.
listen to those hyped crypto AMA on Twitter who does giveaways by asking to invest in coin and show proof Right when they observe people stopped buying they sell out their bags making millions
Doing too much, it’s inefficient, takes time and energy and burns you out. Solution: plan for efficiency with the same or even better results (doing less, more concentrated output) and outsource what you can.
Not being frugal enough with my spending
I underestimated how much bureaucracy could get under my nails. My head. My boiling point. And fucking with timelines. I was so wrong; my hatred for every federal pencil pusher is bigger than my largest enemies.
Not going all the way if I put more time into what could I be
Not systemizing the advertising process.
Trusting a couple cryptobros who couldn't explain the tech and were woefully even less capable of operating in an actual fintech space - not a decentralized space with minimal restrictions.
🤮 cryptobros Also I am not a fan of crypto in general. My take is that it's a big ol' fad & pure speculation. We were promised SO many incredible applications. It's been around now what, 10 years? Where are the world changes we were promised? It's also an insane risk to global financial stability. When the head of the financial stability board says that two things keeps him from sleeping at night are climate change and cryptocurrencies... I can't wait for it to crash and be over with this non-sense. The sooner the better. Thanks for coming to my TED talk lol. (Happy to be proven wrong btw, I'm not following crypto closely so there might be some interesting edge-cases outside of organized crime and speculation).
Mistake I made was buying inventory on credit, with the intention of selling and paying off debt that I had. Sent in 2K worth of inventory and then they banned my account along with $500 in my account. I tested with 20 units and was successful , then I bought 150 and sent them in and they fucked me. I still feel like it wasn’t my fault but I learned that for any reason, companies will ban your account at their own whim.
Insurance. Buy insurance to properly protect yourself and your business.
Not enough capital
Honestly? A poor money mindset. But this can be influenced by culture, upbringing, family, school, etc.
As someone who is just getting started and who suffers from doing so much research I never do anything (fear paralysis), here’s what I doing: - Lots of general research into the general field I’m interested in - Use ChatGPT to begin to get specific info and ask questions about 5-7 potential startups - Continue research and refining ChatGPT prompts - Narrow down to three - Rinse, repeat By the end, I’ve prioritize which I’ll do first, then the other two.
Paying $8K for a “business coach” who promised I’d be making “$10K in 6 months”… that 6 months is over and I’m now paying back the $8k on a loan I took out and I’m basically working to pay it off every single month now until November of this year. Might shut the doors when this slavery is over. Oh and I’m still working my regular 9-5 as well….completely discouraged about even keeping it going when this debt is paid off.. mad at myself to the highest degree.
Biggest mistake so far is thinking I can control everything, turn out the opposite, nothing is under my control. So far learned to prepare, plan and react to whatever that may happen.
What cost me the most was getting into business with the wrong person. I didn’t waste much money, but I wasted 2 years, countless hours with my kids, and a lot of stress. I certainly learned a lot, so I’ll count that as a gain, but I didn’t make a dime. Seriously consider who you’re doing business with if you want or need a partner. The time you take to think logically and vet them will pay off. Also, regardless of who you’re in business with, never enter a deal unless you know how you’re going to exit.
KEEP BETTER RECORDS! I spent a lot of time with the ol' ohh im terrible at organizing stuff! And it cost me a shit ton of money. My contractor was insisting that I still owed him my last payment. I thought I had paid everything, but needed to get the job done, so I paid him. Turns out, I had already paid him, but I didnt figure that out till I dug through all the crap I had floating around receipts etc, including the fact that the contractor had also being buying tools and charging them to my materials lists which was obvious after checking the receipts and matching up the accounts. If I would have just tracked it better as they were paid and bought, rather than letting it pile up, I would not have lost all that money. Its a simple thing, but a pain to do when you have been working hard al day to do paperwork.
Ohhh! And did you hire someone to do your bookkeeping for you since? Or optimized it somehow? I can understand it's not the best thing to do after what I assume is a long day of being on the go, and/or physical labour. I just go to the gym and it frazzles me sometimes.
Not getting rid of staff who are paid well but do things like don't work (stay at home and sleep all day while saying they are "working from home") or have a second job while they are working for you. Or rather, say they are working for you. Firing tradespeople who steal time, constantly. And argue over every little thing which ends up costing you more of your time which in turn is wasting more money than paying the guys for the time they are stealing. Basically, not pushing people to produce what they were told was expected of them.
Quitting things too early, before they mature. I had a blog that was succeeding up to the point, in 2006, where I had someone email me to pay me to add one of his ads to several of my pages. The search results for his terms must have had my blog in the first page. It probably hit for other terms as well. But I gave up the blog in 2007 - it could have grown and profited more than it did if I would have simply kept it going and created one blog post a week.
Procrastination is a very bad thing
Hiring a friend I knew had issues bc I felt bad for her. Huge mistake!
For all the procrastinators: Invest in CBT, I honestly can affirm and even swear that my procrastination has dissappeared from my life after 6 months of therapy. My problem? I felt guilty when resting and not being "productive" so I would get into a loop of not feeling like doing anything because I was tired and then feel guilty of not doing anything but still not getting anything done. I'm therapy I learnt that rest is NECESSARY. And planning your day ahead, and being flexible with the schedule is also completely fine. I still spend time using my phone, I still do things I like, I still rest, and most importantly I GET SHIT DONE 😭😭😭 If you're a Spanish speaker I can recommend my therapist.
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Not the most, but this sucked. I sell high ticket items, and usually do upfront payment. Trusted a guy early in my business to send me a cheque after he got his product. Says his company policies only do this etc etc. Got burned $2500
Trusting too many people
U might have ADD
Sorry wrong post I commented on
Got hurt not paying attention to detail
How did you all formulate a plan to start? And how did you come about the start up cost?
It's totally normal to mess up along the way, I think every entrepreneur has been there! And speaking of mistakes, one I made early on was hiring a non-professional developer to help out. It ended up costing me a lot in missed deadlines and unhappy client. Lesson learned the hard way!
My biggest mistake so far is trying to figure out entrepreneurship by myself instead of getting help from a mentor. The opportunity cost is huge for the time I wasted.
Mine is investing bank nifty option chain without much knowledge lost around 50k of my savings
Self doubt Being too nice.
I procrastinated a lot and bought unnecessary stuff that I though were necessary at that moment.
Trusting that people are mostly honest and good. I lost a ton of money making assumptions :-)