My 13 Lows of Being an Entrepreneur

The closest way of describing entrepreneurship to those who have not done it, is summed up by Elon Musk.

Running a start-up is like chewing glass and staring into the abyss. After a while, you stop staring, but the glass chewing never ends

Today I wanted to share some of my lows. 

Because I’m having one of those days where I basically feel like I’ve wasted years of my life achieving nothing.

(And to help one other person today know they’re not alone)

Here’s some of the lows I’ve experienced:

1. Watching AI decimate an information products business from £3-5k/ month to a £500/month
2. Taking over running a food truck, having it run by a friend, and spending 10-20 hours a week buying shopping, fixing problems and dealing with customers to make less than minimum wage on the side (less than £1,000 a month profit)
3. Employing my girlfriend at the time and her Mum, to have them both quit and then try and extort me for money, because I “owed them” even when I turned a blind eye to bad attitudes, poor work and missed deadlines
4. Missing endless birthdays, nights out, holidays and down time, because I felt guilt about “not doing enough”
5. In my darker days, watching endless You tube videos of kids who basically look like their 12, and seem to be making more money then me in half the time (I know the content may not be real… but theirs nothing quite like punching your self esteem in the bollocks)
6. Having copywriting clients unceremoniously drop you from $3-5,000 a month contracts overnight because of their “cutting costs” and need to change direction. Even when you got results and made sales
7. Being so over worked, complacent and borderline arrogant, that you start turning away easy gigs, or dropping the plate with existing clients because you feel like you’re constantly trying to meet deadlines or put out a fire
8. Turning up to dates on a weekday evening, and literally almost falling asleep 
9. Taking risks on staff, projects or new ideas which leave you in debt, or with almost no money in the bank. So years after starting your business, you feel like you have less money than when you started with
10. Watching friends and family progress in steady careers, and wondering if you made a huge mistake
11. Constantly worrying about whether you’re going to make enough sales and money by the end of the month to pay yourself, your staff and the rent
12. Talking to friends, who in the early days were enthused about your journey, and now they feel like you basically don’t know what the f$£% you’re doing because on the outside nothing seems to have changed
13. That gnawing doubt you have in your mind, whether to stay the course with an existing business, or to pivot and adapt, knowing that your cash reserves are running out