RE: Why am I so scared to start a business?

[quintanilla]

Hello Jimbo, my friend @churdtzu shared this article with me in hopes of also sharing my point of view and recommendations. I took the leap that you want to take. Perhaps my opinion advice might work you, perhaps it might not. But here goes:

My passion were cars, rock n' roll and discovering new places, I wanted to design, and build sports cars, i needed to study a Bachelor in Automotive Design but in my country Mexico there wasn't that career, it was only available in USA, Italy and other European countries. I really wanted this, so I decided to study International Business to grow my income by working in a successful company. A necessary evil, i thought at that time.

I invested 4 years of my life studying international business and postponing my passion. But, many things happen in 4 years, I studied a subject of entrepreneurship and everything changed. I felt the need. Unsatisfied, hopeful, and wishful.

I still needed money, so I worked as a SAP FI in a big corporation, 6 months. I just couldn't stand it... sitting everyday, doing the same stuff, like a mindless zombie, making money for someone i would never meet.

I began to develop an idea that I thought could solve a problem to someone. I began building the UX, very amateur. I worked on it while also working, validating my idea with friends, and people that I knew could be my potential customer. Then I saw it... An opportunity to "launch" my startup, an application to a competition. The price was small but i had nothing to lose. I participated and lost, but the need was quenched.... somehow.

So I took the leap, I quit my job, and asked for the support of my family and friends, I started to take courses and be a conferencist. And assembled a team. I applied to a startup accelerator, and am currently closing my first deal, and applied to startup loans to be able to buy material and my product.

Right now, I couldn't be more happy with the course of action i'm taking. My goals changed a bit, they took another form, but they are still in my gaze, and braking the routine, starting a business (that may fail), is the best I could do with what I had.

My situation is different than yours, in the sense that I have no family in my own, but... I understand your need, If you want to talk more, here I am. I hope i could help you with what I wrote here. Cheers.

Comments

[jimbo]

Hey @quintanilla. Thanks for taking the time out of running your startup to offer me advice and thanks to @churdtzu for the referral. I'm new to the #steemit community but already marvel at how far people like yourself are going out of their way to help others and I don't think it's due to expected rewards.

Your story is fascinating and I hope will encourage myself and inspire others who are in a similar position. May I ask what your financial position was when you decided to quit your job? Did you have funds to support yourself for a number of months or did you rely on family/friends to subsidise living expenses?

How did you go about incentivising a team, did you offer the promise of equity in the company or fund their wages immediately?

How did you go about prototyping at low cost or did you acquire sufficient investment to go at it hard?

How did quitting your job make you feel? Did you become anxious/nervous/paniced, or did it free your mind and let you focus on business?

Do you still feel "the need" to push harder with your idea or would you consider going back to working for somebody else?

How did you family and friends take your decision to "break the mould"?

I hope your business is doing well, do you have a website or product to promote?

[quintanilla]

No problem @jimbo, i do really hope we can still keep talking, I'll add you to my follow list (btw you can see who you follow and more cool info on steemstats.com, not spamming haha)

There's a lot of people that just want to cash-in in steemit... for me... it's an opportunity that i've never had before... to be heard, listen and help others, without borders, or false sense of national belonging. But I digress...

Thank you for listening to my ongoing story, it's really happening all too fast. But thankfully I have a wornderful supportive family, and a Kickass co-founder. (I had to experiencie the departure of 4 co-founders until I met the one.)

Regarding your questions, i'd be glad to share my responses:

1. Financial Position: Right before I was about to finish my contract and decided to quit my job I was having paychecks of 640 USD per month, not much really, but it was enough to get by and.
2. I had enough funds to support myself for 6 months, plus I decided to borrow a personal loan from Bancomer (at that time it was a really good deal because I could ask for it from my mobile app of bancomer, with no background credit checks or anything too rigoruous, I borrowed 3,990 USD so that I could buy an upcoming powerhouse mining rig for bitcoin - It may seem financially unresponsible but life is for the risk takers right ?
3. I incentivise my team by making them believe in me, plus equity, the same equal equity for the cofounders involved. Until now I haven't been able to pay my cofounder, only a dev practitioner, pay him small amount for a month, with a LOT of flexibility. The power of my carefully selected words to convey my message and vision of a startup that could be a gamechanger for problems that could be solved... that made me more believable.
4. There's really not much to say, I'm using lean startup method, trying to figure out every possible key partners and key resources, A/B testing and see what works best and for the less cost. LOTS of trial and error. I haven't acquired investment yet.... investors in Mexico are not keen for high risk decisions and investments (sucks) but they do this for a reason, they believe in traction and validation. Still, my accelerator has access to funds, so they will made the right connection at the right time for funding.
5. At first it made feel liberated, focused, i really could do anything. I used that momentum for building the startup. But then my feeling of anxiosness, and impotence became a 10x-anxiousness/nervous/and panicking, i felt lost, lonely and discouraged.... many many times. By desire to succeed with my startup clashes with my desire to have a good sanity. Still I try to feed the good wolf with positive and wishful thinking... here comes to play the family, spending time with them listen to their good supportive wishes and inspiring words makes me feel happy and keep going forward. Friends really don't care at this point, they say they "do" care, but they won't understand your path, until they think you've reach your goal, although we both know our journey never ends.
6. Still feel the need, it's a good driver. Always keep at it, pivoting as long as I need to, building as many startups as I need to. I'd say that I need to push "smarter" rather than "harder", I'm always thinking of ways of doing things differently, and see the best outcome. I would not consider going back to work for somebody else, unless I need desperate funding for my startup. Last resort.
7. At first it was really hard for them to understand, they thought that I had a really good job that I had to take care of...always making sure of not getting myself fired... instead of thinking about growth and legacy. I prepared them with months of anticipation and valid arguments until I took the leap, and they've grown supportive... father, mother, grandparents and the like. "Friends" really don't give a damn. True friends have supported me by giving me good wishes also, and when going out sometimes they offer me to do things or go to places that are not expensive and equally fun.

Thank you for your wishes my friend, I do have a website and a facebook page of two of my startups: the big one ( Payzi - it's on spanish because of my target market being on Mexico) and the other one is Emprendevision. I'd love to get your feedback. Also if you could drop by to my posts and tell me what you think about my content... that'd be great.
Cheers.

[jimbo]

Wow, steamstats.com is incredible. Thanks for this and for sharing your journey, very interesting. I love the look of your site, bootstrap rocks :) It's comments like these that give me the encouragement to pursure my ambition.

[quintanilla]

hahah it's not 100% finished. But I really appreciate your feedback. We'll improve ! Keep fighting the good fight