Hows your confidence?
Are you confident in yourself? in your projects, in your dreams?
Confidence means a lot, and it permeates through everything we do. It's not only in how we present ourselves, but our projects; it shapes our tolerance to frustration and adversity.
I also know how a string of failures can shape your perspective of the future. It can make otherwise talented developers and entrepreneurs meander, procrastinate, and set themselves up for failure.
I don't know if you're project is a good idea. Most ideas are bad ones, and even good ones are subject to failure. But I know that if you really have confidence in your project, it will at least have a fighting chance. If you build something but don't believe in it, move on to something more worthwhile.
Lastly, i've talked with a number of IH in my short memberhip here. Again, and again the people I talk to are boiling over with potential and untapped talent that they are just oblivious to. Developers, marketers, recruiters, a guy in construction, a retired female engineer... they all defined themselves as "not talented enough" or as being imposters.
Where do you stand?
I fully believe I can make it it's just I don't know how many failures I'll encounter before I get there. As an engineer I'm still learning marketing/growth hacking and all aspects related to running a business. I suspect I'll make a few more mistakes before I get there but the journey is fun :)
I like your attitude! Failure (and likely repeated failures) are the price of entry. But as long as you keep learning, you are making progress in the entrepreneurial journey. Keep it up!
I find it hard to be 100% confident about things that I do and create. I'm not really sure how that is, as I try really hard to be a good so-called 'entrepreneur'.
I think, as you mentioned as well, failure can shape one's perspective on how well he or she does in life. Though, success should do at least the equal opposite of this. I don't personally experience this though, which makes it hard to be really confident in yourself. Key thing is, I believe, 1) not giving a (let's keep it nice) thing about what other people think, and 2) not comparing yourself to others' success or person at all.
In my experience, this will only put yourself down (much like the 'Perfect life on Instagram' stuff) rather than boost your confidence / happiness. I think the cliché is true, believe in yourself. Do listen to others, but no-one's advice is the holy grail.
I have confidence in my abilities to tackle the software development challenges I set out for myself. I don't know which will succeed and which won't, but I go in with the attitude that it doesn't matter as long as I am happy with what I created. If it fails, I learned, if it succeeds I get money 🤣
What I don't have confidence in is my sales and people skills. I have (self-diagnosed) social anxiety. I can handle text-based communication fairly well, so my best bet as an aspiring entrepreneur is in SaaS.
I have confidence in my ideas and abilities but lack the ability to stand by a project without moving onto the next concept. This is mostly spill-over from my freelance career. I'm learning to find a balance.
I'm confident I can complete the product. I'm less confident about how much to charge for it, and whether or not schools will want to pay for it, and even if they do want to - whether or not they can afford it. I'm planning on charging $7/mo per student. I'm going with monthly pricing as some courses may only want to use the product for one assignment - so they don't need it for the whole semester. They can pay for it for the time period the assignment is worked on and scored.
I'm confident that my current business will go well. I think my current business will take some time to grow. Everyone does mistakes and we always learn something new every day. I'm quite glad that I did a lot of mistakes at a young age (early twenties).
I've found that my confidence feels like a roller-coaster ride depending on how my project (www.tribefive.me) is doing. Some days, I'm riding high while other days I struggle to even describe what I'm working on.
Right after I soft launched in early July, I was pretty bummed out because engagement and retention were low. Luckily, I swallowed my pride and asked for feedback. Got LOTS of it that helped shape the roadmap for the next version.
Now, as we get closer to launch, my confidence is HIGH because I can see how this version of the app is 10x better than the last.
I think im confident that i can build a good application, but im unsure about getting traction, and getting things going.
Here is an article i wrote on the imposter syndrome... i know it seems like a shameless plug but i figured it also answers your question.
https://medium.com/@miles.rostami/imposter-35eae8fde7d9
Not so long ago I favorited a Tweet I saw, that went something along the line:
"If you don't have imposter syndrome, you can't be a good person."
While a bit exaggerated, I somehow agree with it. Perhaps the source of it is the belief that, an imposter syndrome might come from always striving to be better. Many developers think "I'm not good enough" - and that is completely fine, because even experienced developers continue learning. It's a process.
I also sometimes have an imposter syndrome, but then I remind myself how I had fantastic yearly reviews from my previous employer and coworkers (disclaimer: it was my decision to leave the company). Of course, it shouldn't only be an external validation that brings your spirits up. Sometimes one should just reflect on their own abilities and, while there's always room for improvement, admit there is always a level of skill we represent, and then appreciate that fact.
I think I totally failed my very first product launch [1] on the marketing side. I'm a programmer, so the weak marketing I made can be somehow explained. That did affect my confidence to some degree. But you know what? We take hits, get up and continue the hustle. I've build the thing in less than 6 months and I have something to be proud of. The worst that can happen is I can use it on my CV for my next employer as part of my portfolio.
This community is made up of makers with entrepreneurial spirit. I think most of will will have one or more stories of failures (and possibly how that affected confidence), but the most important part is to learn from those and look forward. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger - and that includes strengthening of our confidence.
[1] https://www.indiehackers.com/product/stackdraft