[HELP!] Doubt.
Hello Everyone,
A couple of years ago, I had an idea for a mobile payments app and decided to give it a try. It would be my first time experiencing the life of an entrepreneur. I teamed up with a guy who was a successful entrepreneur and we began to build.
I thought the app was a good idea; investors thought it was a great idea. Long story short, I spent two years of my life working on this project and it was a miserable failure.
We spent days focusing on the wrong things. Our team was just thrown together because we felt we needed them. Everything the entrepreneurship books tell you to do one way, we did the other.
The worst part?
After two years of busting my *** and spending every dollar I had, my partner told me at our parting dinner, "You know, you're probably just not cut out for this."
It crushed me. I looked up to him. He had what I wanted; two $40MM+ exits and changing an industry. All I had was a tent, sleeping bag and an eviction notice.
Well... I'm back on my feet now; however, I am still met with a SERIOUS case of doubt whenever I try to explore new projects. I will frequently get ideas, test MVPs, find success and then quit all within a matter of a few weeks. Shoot... I even launched a premium subscription service a year ago and it made $10k within 8 hours, but even then, I will find a reason to doubt and be discouraged. I'm embarrassed to say that I quit that project, too.
It doesn't make any sense to me why I have so much doubt. It's the only thing standing in my way, but it is a HUGE roadblock right now.
Have you guys ever conquered doubt?
If so, how?
Would love any advise you guys could give! Thanks in advance!
Doubts are my food and water.
Hey Eric,
I went full time on my own projects over a year ago, so I haven't been doing this entrepreneurship thing long in the grand scheme of things, but I've had enough experience and done enough therapy to learn that this doubt your experiencing never really goes away.
Nothing can be known- life is only uncertainty. So sadly, if you're waiting for doubt to go away, I can tell you for sure that it never really will. The Buddhists would probably say it's a form of the suffering we endure as human beings.
The only power we have in this unfair world with doubt and uncertainty is to change our relationship to it. Realize that it's always there, even when we delude ourselves into thinking it isn't. Feel where the uncertainty is in your body. What is it trying to tell you? Thank it for its service in trying to help you, but create space between the feeling of uncertainty and the thoughts that lead to acting on that feeling (e.g. meditation). With this, you'll learn that you are strong. Strong enough to face uncertainty and see the difference between risk and recklessness.
The ability to cope with uncertainty is like a muscle- the more you do it, the better you'll get and the easier it will be (though I understand that's a platitude to your suffering at this moment). So some day you'll feel uncertainty, but less. Or you'll be so good at ignoring uncertainty that it wont hold power over you.
It does get better. The first step though is grieving the life you hoped you'd have where there was only certainty. Then you can grow.
I also recommend therapy- speaking your feelings really helps.
You got this.
Hey Eric, feel for you man.
Self-doubt is a part of every entrepreneur's journey, and it can be hard to get over if someone has had an experience such as you've had.
I'll just say - everything heals with time and action.
The more you stay in your head the more doubt you'll face. I think you could benefit a lot from shipping many small projects right now.
Doing something like a 12 startups challenge like Pieter Levels or Jon Yongfook.
And through those projects, you speak to a bunch of people. Some could be potential customers, others could be fellow Indie Hackers.
But you need to get out of your head and start talking to a lot more people, and start building stuff coz that's what you're good at.
And if you have some sort of stable income, don't try to make money from these projects right away.
Build just for the sake of building - it can be very therapeutic.
Hope this helps!
That's wild. I think you have PTSD or something from your last experience. If generating five figures within hours of launching a product doesn't convince you to keep going, I'm not sure anything said here is going to help. You may need counseling or a life coach or something to really dig in with you and figure out what's going on.
By the way, you should relaunch whatever that was and push hard on it.
If you can build something and make 10k out of it, don’t doubt yourself.
If you can build something and ship it, don’t doubt yourself.
Just build, ship, sell, repeat.
A f*ckin tone of money/success is coming for you. The other guy is maybe rich and successful, but if what you said is true, he is also an asshole. Don’t be jealous.