TL;DR – Stay focused on one project and know what your goals are. Don’t get dissuaded easily or distracted by a “fancier, shinier” project.
I've always had a love for entrepreneurship and I've always had a lot of ideas that I've wanted to execute on. My first business was a publishing company. It came about when I realized there was room for disruption and I started it before eBooks had really taken off. I saw opportunity and I was worried if I didn't jump then the window would close.
I had to learn a lot at first: how do I setup a business (and what type is best), what do I need to do to protect myself, how do I go about setting up contracts, how best can I provide publishing services? I had a background in programming, but not for the web. I started learning PHP, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and anything else I could get my hands on. I learned about security and user management and UI design and I dove in and started building.
Pretty soon I had a functional, overly-designed website with an admin console and integrations into anything I could come up with. I had spent so much time focusing on this build that I let my business slip. I had built out services for novel layouts, graphic design, editorial services and online book hosting. I had been busy building and had forgotten what my end goal really was. I tried to re-focus on some of what I had already learned and I had to re-learn some of what I had forgotten. I soon found myself venturing out to learn more about marketing, public relations, social media, etc. It seemed like an uphill battle that would never end.
When I finally felt like I had a good grasp on everything it had been years (due in large part to the side-project nature of it all) and I was fatigued. I had published a few books and was in negotiations with authors, but I wasn't excited anymore. I tried to sit down and re-focus, and what I came up with was another project. I thought I had been focusing on the wrong thing, and this new idea was 10 times better. It was an idea to provide Google Analytics for books. I had already built a semi-working version within my previous site, but I wanted to separate it and brand it on its own.
I started building again and soon enough had a live website and marginal interest. I focused on marketing and tried to find my target audience, but it was hard. Traffic didn't come easy, and when it did, it didn't convert. I tweaked my advertising approach and UI and tried to aim for stronger call-to-actions on my landing page, but I was discouraged. Marketing dollars kept chugging along but I, again, slowly lost interest and was looking for “the next new thing.”
What I ended up finding was and is my current effort. This time around I tried to keep it simple. A simple message, a simple product, a simple website and third-party builds for everything so I didn't get distracted with building myself. I wanted to stay focused this time and I wanted to get faster results. I realized that I sometimes have to take a step back and see what my end goals are. I’m not trying to set the world on fire, but I am trying to work for myself and build something I can be proud of and help other people.
I’m writing this as a cautionary tale for others. It’s a long road, and if you aren't focused either on what you’re currently doing or what your end goals are, you can get burned out and frustrated easily. If you know what your goals are, it will be harder to be dissuaded and distracted.
PS – I haven’t listed my business here because I don’t feel it adds to the discussion. If you look around my current venture will be very easy to track down.
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