How are you dealing with the uncertainty of the creator path?
I've been "participating" in the creator hobby (no money made yet) since 2019, and I often wonder:
Am I on the right path?
I realised that the Creator economy path is accompanied by a high level of uncertainty.
As a creator, you need to reinvent yourself regularly. But if it takes you X years to make it with gig number one and you need to reinvent yourself in Y years. Then the whole thing is a constant grind?
And no, I don't buy: Just do it for X years, and you will succeed.
Maybe it works, but to stay on track, one needs to regularly deal with the emotions that come with uncertainty. I have some support system, but they are not entirely sufficient.
The fact is, I want to eventually shift out of my full-time job. I have about three years before I do the switch + around three years of savings. So, in theory, I need to start making cash from Creator endeavours in 6 years.
6 years to make something work is a lot. But doing the work without seeing any "significant improvements" is emotionally really hard.
I should probably just let go of the fear, but still:
How do you deal with the emotions that accompany the uncertainty of the Creator journey?
watch gary vee videos and let him brain wash you
Hope that's a joke :)
This is a great advice.
On 1.). But if you go for long term game you can't put the paywall up right away you need to build the reputation?
Now that's easy in theory but little harder in practice. Because in the long term game (especially content one) rewords might come up in the distant future. Or they also might not.
One way around is validate with profit ASAP as you suggested, but if you know it will take time to make it good that's not the solution. Does that make sense?
You need to be able to sell something, if not sooner or later you might found out nobody willing to pay for it.
Reputation is a dangerous thing to wait for as it can take years to build and you need your product to be able to sell without it.
I feel you are thinking too much. 3 yr of saving, that too much.
Start part-time, like 20 hr in the week. Work in early morning or night and also on weekend, do it for at least 3 months, review your progress on-
No one is going to become a creator in 3-4 month of grind.
I think the more money you manage to save before doing the switch, the less you will worry about the uncertainty.
Being a developer, if you have savings, you will have a decent margin to find another full time boring job again. Depending on your savings, you will have more time to iterate, reshape and succeed, as projects (usually) don’t start returning the investment as fast as we would like.
Pick all this from someone that just got $42 so far at the moment, from his projects 🤣
I have gone through this
For me it's a like one day my business may stop working and customer will stop using my services
Now that kind of emotional fear have reduced, I still leave with such emotions
Feel you.
Is there anything specific that helped you reduced those feelings?
I made a list of all possible worst cases senerios and fear points. Then listed what exact action I should take to nullify that... Like
Fear Point : What if my first SaaS gradually reduce making money
Action : Build at least 5 more SaaS products
Fear Point : What if for some reason I can't work my business
Action : I told my self I will find a job . I may not earn as much I do in business.. that's fine.
And so on..
Nice. I like this.
Used it in other areas of my life but not for this.
Tnx for sharing.
One thing is for sure - you need to be doing something you LOVE DONG.
Otherwise, you'll give up in a few months.
Tnx for this. Absolutely agree with it.
I would say I like doing it since I've been doing it for two years :D
Then you're probably on the right track! :D
P.S. If you're on windows, I have a shameless promotion to make: https://cinematicstudio.app :D
If you try it, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Thanks!
Nope. Not a Windows user :)
Starting a business is basically an act of faith. The best thing you can do is to find a co-founder who believes in the business more than you. Having a good partner can reduce the risk of reality sneaking up on you. But you still have to be realistic someday about the prospect of failure. Be honest with yourself, draw a line on the sand, and don't wait till you hit bottom to get out.
I like the concept of drawing the line how fat you would go.
Co-founder part. Tried that but have found a person that was more dedicated to the idea they me, yet :)
Can you describe the emotions you are facing? Not the facts that lead to them but the emotions?
That will make it a lot easier to help.
Huh. No "right" emotion pops up.
I would say fear of not knowing if all the work will pay off in some way?
I am a bit of the control freak that likes constant feedback loops :)
There must be some kind of emotion or this wouldn't cause you so much trouble. Search your feelings. ;)
One possibility would be fear of losing control. If that rings true, there are lots of good resources on the internet on how to deal with this.
This comment was deleted 4 years ago
Hey. Tnx for this.
Yeah my plan is to go part time first before I completely switch to the creator world.
What you wrote all sounds good in theory but once just thrusting that it will work out is often hard. I've done it plenty of times on scale of a year but longer than that is kind of scary.
This comment was deleted 4 years ago