We all feel like impostors
My name is Tiago and I am hosting the Wannabe Entrepreneur Podcast for more than 170 episodes now.
This has given me the chance to interview many entrepreneurs from all backgrounds and in multiple stages. From bootstrappers that have terminated their projects without even really starting it to entrepreneurs that write books and have thousands of followers.
I learned a lot from them but one unexpected learning was that:
They all have insecurities
All of them fall into the impostor syndrome trap. Here are some good examples...
1- Arvid Kahl
Arvid had an excellent exit with is company, sells hundreds of books and has more than 40K followers on Twitter.
In my interview with Arvid he told me that he looks up to Peter Levels and there is times when he envies his success regarding the number of books he is able to sell.
2- Dagobert
In a matter of month he was able to grow his number of Twitter followers from 2K to 12K.
In my interview both with him and his Wife/Co-founder they told me that they are only now reaching a somehow decent salary after 4 years of struggling and that the pressure of keeping it up and avoid mistakes is sometimes too high to handle.
3- The Bread Code
A YouTuber with 100K subscribers told me that he has spent one year without even reaching the 1K mark and after finding some traction has been spending countless hours with marketing, social media and testing multiple titles and thumbnail.
All of examples lead to three important conclusions...
No matter our degree of success we all have our insecurities.
Quite often you might think that the people you look up are better than you and you will never achieve their level but In reality they are most likely worried to reach their own idols or simply stressing out to keep up their momentum.
What you see is not what it seems
Behind every successful entrepreneur there are years of hard work, sacrifices and self doubt. The success might seem instant for you because you only get to know the person at their best, but believe me. It takes time...
Just because they are famous it does not mean they are rich
There are very trendy businesses and profiles that in reality are actually making very little money. Either because they are spending most of it in marketing or just because it is hard monetize...
Let's keep pushing
Like you there are tons of other indie makers trying to build their projects and having little success. You are not alone! Just keep working consistently and always in the lookout for what you can improve!
And if you feel like you need some extra support checkout our entrepreneurs virtual co-working space.
Cheers,
This is refreshing to see. My wife and I started our project a couple of months ago, and it seems like a lot of work for no reward thus far. Knowing that most people feel that way on this path is comforting. Thanks for sharing!
Funny but so true. As a bootstrapped founder doing over 100k MRR (took us 6+ years), I actually feel like a loser seeing all those startups growing from 0 to 10M in 5 years.
yup, no matter what level you are you will be always looking up, to down or around XD
Still 100 MRR is a dreamy number! Congrats!
Thanks for sharing.
glad you like it
Yes
Well I would definitely rather feel like an imposter at 10k followers and > $0 MRR than feeling like an imposter right now at < 100 followers and $0 MRR :)
ofc. but they have been there too...
I suffered terribly from this when I ran a blog!
to be honest I suffer from this in many aspects of my life... haha
Thanks for sharing this. Good job. The more you learn the more you realize there is so much left to do and achieve.
true...
Very few people mention the mentality of entrepreneurs, thank you for sharing these. Your podcast is great! @tiagorbf
I am glad you liked it and thank you for listening to the podcast!!
Thanks for sharing, Tiago.
btw I may join your virtual co-working space, to build my next few projects in public. :D
I am glad you liked it! Looking forward to seeing you there. Let me know if you have any questions...
Sure :)
I don't feel like an impostor. I am an impostor.
me too ;)
Great examples! You always feel like an impostor when you compare yourself with people that may seem more successful than you, but when you get to interact more with them you realize everyone is "faking" it in some way or another, and I don't mean that in a bad way, we've all got our insecurities.
could not agree more. we only see what they share...
Thangs Tiago, it's very inspiting!
Thanks for the comment! Glad it helps!
This was right on time. The more I hangout in IH or different subreddits, the more discouraged I get. Better to focus on the project than my lacking skills etc.
Exactly. Don't focus too much on others instead forward that energy to figure out how you can improve
Thanks for sharing this!
no problem. glad you like it
Well done sentiment indeed. It is an extraordinarily hard journey but the wins soothe the mental wounds and give a big lift for the next stage. Last week I finally got to an MVP end-to-end workflow after studying the AWS Serverless world diligently (there are so many ways to do things to a noob's eyes), adding in some 3rd party resources, and removing some things from the mix which I could not develop quickly enough. It's a constant process of short/long-term risk/reward assessment and moving forward quickly. Now on to alpha/beta launching early next month. All the best to everyone building in 2022!
great to hear that you have your MVP ready. Now it comes the cool part! Sharing it with the world! cheers
I would love to hear more from you guests about how they deal with fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Internally and from their friends family and even staff. I think one of the hardest things about being an entrepreneur is having faith, and balancing that with objective reality. Personally for me this is one of the most challenging things. it's less that I feel like an imposter and more of a "are we there yet" like a dad doing a summer roadtrip with kinds and them constantly asking if we're there yet...'there' being success.
Many of my guests speak about it. You should listen to my chat with Lucy: https://wannabe-entrepreneur.com/episodes/168/
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