Evan Carmichael talks about the fear that your startup won't work. He launched a software company at 19 that flopped so badly he almost quit, but came back because he believed in the work. Success isn't a straight line; it's failures and pivots until something clicks.
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What if it doesn't work out? I made a video not too long ago called Ignore the Nonbelievers, and in this video I talk about the people who doubt you, the people who, who hate on your ideas, the people who make you feel like you're never gonna make it. I call these people now Little Man. We all have a Little Man in our life who's trying to hold us back, tell us all the reasons why something is not gonna work out. You can't listen to little man. And I got a response from one of my YouTube viewers— love you guys— L. Chen, who wrote in to say, "What if it doesn't work out?" And this is a real fear for a lot of entrepreneurs when you're first getting started. Here's what you have to know about success as an entrepreneur. Success doesn't look like this. Okay, success is not just a straight line of success. It's, it's a bunch of failures before you take off. And if you look at every business that started, the idea that you start with is not the idea that you end with. You're going to have to change your product, your service, your approach, your marketing. You're going to have to change so much as you grow your company. And all of those things can be seen as, as failures. And so for me, the biggest question comes down to how badly do you really want this? Are you trying to do something important or not? Is this, is this core to you or not? Are you passionate about this or not? Because if you're not, if you're doing this just for the money and you're stuck in this little wave of ups and downs and failures before you hit it, if you're stuck in all that failure, you're gonna quit. It's, it's— there's nothing driving you to keep going, right? The money is not enough of a driver to help you keep going. You're going to quit. And you could say it didn't work out. But if you passionately believe in what you're doing and, and what you're trying to build is important for you and your community and your family, if it's that important for you, then you'll ride through all those crazy ups and downs and big failures to make it through to that success. You look at companies, look, and I encourage you, find your favorite big famous entrepreneur and look at how they got started. It was not like this. It was tons of, "What if I'm not going to make it?" Tons of failures. I think about my own company, my first software company I had. I was 19 years old. I, uh, I thought, "I'm going to make it. Of course I'm going to make it." You know, I had two great partners. I had, you know, university training. I was going to make this thing happen. I'd done my research. I'm a hard worker. And I spent the whole summer working on my plan. This is my marketing plan, how we're going to go to market, how we're going to make millions of dollars from this software. And I was really excited about it. You know, it has to work. And we launched and it didn't work at all. Nothing. It was an embarrassing failure and a huge pill to swallow. And it made me think about quitting. And I could have thought, just like you are right now, what if I don't make it? Like, I did not make it. I planned, I worked, and I didn't make it. And at that point, I had to decide either I quit this thing because it's too hard, because I don't know how it's going to work out, because I don't have the answers, because I didn't have as much confidence in myself anymore, or I keep going because what I'm doing here is important, because I believe in it, and I'm going to find a way to make it work. And I almost quit. It wasn't like, oh, of course I'm going to keep going. That's a hard decision. I almost quit, and I told my partner that I quit. I told him I was out, and I, I was crying for 20 minutes afterwards and barely slept that night. I told him I quit. And the next day I got up and I went back to work because what I was doing was important. And it was that driving force that kept me going, that this is important work that we're doing and it needs to continue. And even though I don't know how it's going to work out, I'm going to keep working until I find a way for it to work out. So what if it doesn't work out? It's not going to work out at the start. It won't. And ignore the little man and ignore people ridiculing you and saying it's never gonna happen. Those people don't count. If it's important enough for you, you'll find the way and it will work out. Believe. For those of you watching, like the video. Give it a thumbs up below. That stuff makes me want to make more videos for you. Please leave a comment. Let me know what you think. I love seeing the comments. It's the best part of my day. You have a question, leave it below too. I'll make a video response. And if you want to see more videos like this, click on my face, subscribe to the channel, and you'll see more videos. Thank you so much, and I'll see you soon.
