Evan Carmichael shares what he learned starting a business, including earning just $300 a month early on and constantly wanting to quit. He argues that starting a business is genuinely hard, not easy like some advice suggests, and that persistence and execution matter most.
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Starting a business is hard. I said that in one of my videos and I got a response on YouTube from Jared Ellicott who wrote in to say, "Starting a business is hard. How demotivational." He didn't spell demotivational properly, but that's okay. I have my first hater! This is great! Jared, Jared, starting a business is hard. And I wish somebody told me that when I was starting my company, because the books make it seem so easy. Do this, do this, do this, follow this simple recipe, and boom, you're a success. It doesn't happen that way. And what it sets people up for is a huge crash. When you're starting your business, the first few months you're all excited, you're running on fumes, everything seems to be exciting because you're off your passion. And then the crash comes because it starts taking longer than you thought it was, things are harder than you thought it was going to be, and you think This isn't going to work for me. And you think about quitting. And I thought about quitting all the time. Every week I thought about quitting with my first business. I was making $300 a month, barely able to survive, when my friends were making it big in the corporate world. Because nobody told me how hard it was to start a business. And I had this major crash and I thought, hey, everybody else is having this huge success What's wrong with me? Why can't I make this thing happen? I wish somebody prepared me for it. Starting a business is hard, but it's still entirely possible. You can do it. And if I'd have been prepared for it better, I wouldn't have had as big a crash. And that's where most people shut down. They start up, great ideas, great execution, we're going, going, going, and then You peak, and then you start to go down because you're not seeing any results. You've got to plow through that. Your passion will help you, your conviction will help you, your execution, your hard work, your follow-through will all help you. But knowing that it's hard, knowing that that crash is coming will also help you. And I think the worst advice I could give somebody is starting a business is easy, because they're going to look at their own company and see how hard it is, and feel like a total failure and feel like quitting. Starting a business is hard, but you can get through it. If you ask any famous entrepreneur, look at any story, and I have the largest collection of famous entrepreneur profiles anywhere online. Read any of them. Nobody says it's easy. No entrepreneur says, "Oh yeah, I did this, this, and this, and it was done, and it was great." Nobody says that. It's not easy, but it's entirely possible. As for being demotivational, which you can't spell properly. Look at any video that I've put up, look at any of the comments, and see if anybody gets demotivated by my videos. I believe in entrepreneurs. I think this is your chance to make a mark, to change the world, and to do that, you gotta put everything you've got into your business. You gotta realize that it's hard, you gotta follow your passion, and you gotta follow through every day to do something to grow your business. If you do that, you'll have huge success as an entrepreneur. So yeah, starting a business is hard, but it's totally possible. Believe. For those of you watching, please give it a thumbs up below if you liked the video. I'd love to hear from you if you have a comment, if you want to say something to Jared, or if you're another hater, leave a comment, I want to hear from you too. If you have a question for your business, leave it below, I'll do a video response. Thank you guys, I'll see you soon.
