Anxiety in starting a business

Noddy Nangle

Hi there

I am starting a new business and a friend of mine has invested to get me started. I have created a brand new service which has never been done before and I haven't hit one stumbling block so far except one. My anxiety of fear of failure is with me everyday and it's making my life a misery. I do believe in my product andI know the anxiety is irrational but it's still there. Did anyone ever experience similar or how did they overcome it?

BarryD2

Why are you anxious? Have you much to lose? Can you afford to operate/ live on whatever income you have coming in?

Customers and sales are the key to any business. Build them up.

ironclaw

"The reality is great highs, terrible lows and unrelenting stress. Don't think people want to hear about the last two" - Elon Musk.

Its corny, but its true. I'm starting my own thing at the moment, much like yourself, but its self funded. Every coffee I buy, every bus I take, is coming out of savings. It may never pay off. But, I'm safe in the knowledge that I can always go back and find a job. May not be on the 50th floor in Manhattan, may not be a private island like I dream, but I can find something to pay the rent and get myself back on the line. Its far easier to say that than do it. And i regularly feel like yourself OP, those are not good days. But I break down a task and get it done. Might be tiny, might be a mountain, but its a step forward. Keep making those steps and have a project plan to follow, its the only way you can truly say 'I'm making progress' and that to me keeps me sane.

I'll follow up on BarryD2's comment regarding income. Build you MVP and forecast whats the bear minimum you need to keep your head above water and I mean the very bare minimum e.g. Rent & food. Anything beyond that takes the pressure off and its been a great help for me. And always, if you have a slump, you probably have transferable skills in your area, perhaps you can onboard a client or side project to boost the coffers in a slow period. Keep the money flowing and know what the minimum you need is

Digital_Guy

ironclaw wrote: »

"The reality is great highs, terrible lows and unrelenting stress. Don't think people want to hear about the last two" - Elon Musk.

Its corny, but its true. I'm starting my own thing at the moment, much like yourself, but its self funded. Every coffee I buy, every bus I take, is coming out of savings. It may never pay off. But, I'm safe in the knowledge that I can always go back and find a job. May not be on the 50th floor in Manhattan, may not be a private island like I dream, but I can find something to pay the rent and get myself back on the line. Its far easier to say that than do it. And i regularly feel like yourself OP, those are not good days. But I break down a task and get it done. Might be tiny, might be a mountain, but its a step forward. Keep making those steps and have a project plan to follow, its the only way you can truly say 'I'm making progress' and that to me keeps me sane.

I'll follow up on BarryD2's comment regarding income. Build you MVP and forecast whats the bear minimum you need to keep your head above water and I mean the very bare minimum e.g. Rent & food. Anything beyond that takes the pressure off and its been a great help for me. And always, if you have a slump, you probably have transferable skills in your area, perhaps you can onboard a client or side project to boost the coffers in a slow period. Keep the money flowing and know what the minimum you need is

''As a startup CEO I slept like a baby. I woke up every 2 hours and cried.''

What's the business ironclaw? Intrigued

There is nothing wrong with failure. If you do fail it will make you stronger and build your character. If anything you should be using this fear of failure as your adversity to drive you on and spur you to success.
If you start feeling wishy washy, give yourself a slap, tell yourself to stop being soft, and get to work!

tacofries

The vast majority of entrepreneurs must feel some sort of anxiety, it would be unnormal for them not to.

For me this only kicked in once we successfully raised investment. Before raising money I could do whatever I liked with no real consequences. Since money was raised it really hits me that I have a responsibility to other people to do the right thing.

I actually decided 2 weeks ago that I am going to start going to a councillor every month or two just to offload any anxiety from the business as at the end of the day most of the worries are unjustified and created from me ovethinking things.

Moomat

tacofries wrote: »

I actually decided 2 weeks ago that I am going to start going to a councillor every month or two just to offload any anxiety from the business as at the end of the day most of the worries are unjustified and created from me ovethinking things.

I recently went through a catastrophic business failure - bankruptcy, lost the house etc... It actually isn't as bad as one would imagine!

I often wondered is counseling a big area for entrepreneurs. Have you come across many providers or users of such a service?

MrGaryFox

Anxiety is a very real part of entrepreneurship but it's rarely talked about. It is not as sexy as "100 ways to earn €10k today" or "How I sold my business for €10 million".

I've been running my business for just short of 2 years now and experienced every high and low possible. The business is now on a profitable path and on paper, in a very good place but the pressure is still there. It simply takes different forms. I think it's in an entrepreneur's nature to always be looking ahead and not settling. This brings the pressure.

Now to some practical advice. Find the single biggest thing that's causing the anxiety and meet it head on and take practical steps. For small businesses, 90% of the time will be money related.

Write down the 3 things causing your anxiety and then write your plan to deal with each one. Then immediately execute that plan. Immediate execution is the most important lesson here. Procrastination leads to anxiety which leads to paralysis by analysis which leads to further anxiety.

For example, I run 3 different scenarios at any given time when evaluating my business.
Worst case scenario, normal scenario, and best case scenario. Nothing original there but it helps massively. I will keep working the plan until even if worst case scenario hits, I'll still be absolutely fine.

Feel free to PM me with specifics as don't want to hijack the thread here.

Just take action. 1 day as an entrepreneur is better than 365 days doing something you hate.

ironclaw

Deleted User wrote: »

There is nothing wrong with failure. If you do fail it will make you stronger and build your character. If anything you should be using this fear of failure as your adversity to drive you on and spur you to success.
If you start feeling wishy washy, give yourself a slap, tell yourself to stop being soft, and get to work!

I feel there is a good point here to expand upon, the chances are your business, in the first iteration is going to fail. Mine did, and are. We thought we had it sorted, but it was merely breaking even and closer examination meant it would never really grow. We pivoted, and now things are looking positive but yet to be proven so. Nearly every business fails but its 'how' you fail is the important bit. If you know why, you've probably learned more than the guy or girl who succeeded.

Digital_Guy wrote: »

''As a startup CEO I slept like a baby. I woke up every 2 hours and cried.''

What's the business ironclaw? Intrigued

Love the quote :pac:

I have two actually. First, the more technical, is booking software for venues. The second is Udemy courses for enterprise eComm. Neither are making money at this point, both are either in late development or early release.

ironclaw

ironclaw wrote: »

I feel there is a good point here to expand upon, the chances are your business, in the first iteration is going to fail. Mine did, and are. We thought we had it sorted, but it was merely breaking even and closer examination meant it would never really grow. We pivoted, and now things are looking positive but yet to be proven so. Nearly every business fails but its 'how' you fail is the important bit. If you know why, you've probably learned more than the guy or girl who succeeded.

The failures I have had have led to the successes I have had. My first success came very young and with that I made serious mistakes with cashflow. Learning from that kept other businesses afloat in the future, managing the cashflow much better.
I took on very complicated projects in my mid 20's that had huge stresses in terms of the business and my own personal safety even. And I made mistakes during that time, but without that experience I wouldn't be half the businessman I am today, and I feel because of those scenarios, my decision making is much better, rounded and stable now. I perform much better under stress and faced with serious problems I am calm and collected, whereas when I was younger I was much more rough around the edges and emotional dealing with things. That led to mistakes, and failures sometimes. I would look back on meetings I had, and vow to correct the flaws.

If as an entrepreneur one doesn't go into businesses and idea's being ok with failing, and having the self belief that if it does fail you can pick yourself up and start again no matter what happens, then it may well be the case that your not psychologically strong enough to take those kind of risks and something safer would be more suitable for that personality type.

That being said if one has kids to worry about thats a different ball game. But if you don't then really your worrying about nothing. What are you afraid of actually? Having to go without a social life for a while when you pick up the dole? Or intangible things like what people will think of you? I consider that akin to my mother telling me as kid 'don't say that to Mrs X across the road'. Its nonsense really. You gotta be tough as an entrepreneur and not let peoples opinions of you matter or affect your drive and mentality.

An analogy I use a lot about failure is if your playing poker for money and you lose hands because you made a mistake, made the wrong call, gave a tell away or something. You have to leave the table because of your failing with empty pockets. It hurts at the time, no doubt about it. But the next time you sit down at the table your not going to make that same mistake again, or at least be aware of it and do your best not too. So you won't be leaving the table empty handed. Business can be like sport, poker, or whatever other hobby or skill you want to improve at. It takes time, dedication and practice to learn and improve.

This is my philosophy on failure, it can be very good for you because it can make you much better. If your persistent, then things will eventually come good.

Ghekko

I'd suggest a course in CBT. Dh did this to help him with anxiety and give tools to overcome anxiety in certain situations. Would be best to do it now as you already feel anxious starting out. Took a few years for him to do it and it may have saved him sleepless nights if he'd done it sooner.

CeilingFly

Think of it as a horse race.

If you are very confident, you have your money of a hot favourite.

Sometimes hot favourites donlt win.

Hence always bet as much as you can afford to lose.

Same with business and investors in business know that. But there is no shame whatsoever in failing once you have given it 100%. If thw worst happens, you learn form whatever errors there were and move on.


Same applies to many aspects of life.

tacofries

Moomat wrote: »

I recently went through a catastrophic business failure - bankruptcy, lost the house etc... It actually isn't as bad as one would imagine!

I often wondered is counseling a big area for entrepreneurs. Have you come across many providers or users of such a service?

Sounds like you have been through the mills! Hopefully you are back on track with thins now,.

I havent heard of any entrepreneurs that avail of a counselling service so not sure if it is too popular.

Moomat

tacofries wrote: »

Sounds like you have been through the mills! Hopefully you are back on track with thins now,.

I havent heard of any entrepreneurs that avail of a counselling service so not sure if it is too popular.

All good thanks, just changed tracks

I can certainly the merits in what you suggested, I hope it helps.

tacofries

Moomat wrote: »

All good thanks, just changed tracks

I can certainly the merits in what you suggested, I hope it helps.

Some times it can be good to start fresh...

I'm not going through any serious issues by any means but once we managed to get money into the account I found myself over thinking things way too often. Time for me to take back control!

Digital_Guy

ironclaw wrote: »

I feel there is a good point here to expand upon, the chances are your business, in the first iteration is going to fail. Mine did, and are. We thought we had it sorted, but it was merely breaking even and closer examination meant it would never really grow. We pivoted, and now things are looking positive but yet to be proven so. Nearly every business fails but its 'how' you fail is the important bit. If you know why, you've probably learned more than the guy or girl who succeeded.



Love the quote :pac:

I have two actually. First, the more technical, is booking software for venues. The second is Udemy courses for enterprise eComm. Neither are making money at this point, both are either in late development or early release.

Interesting, sounds cool! Are there quite a few people doing that booking software idea? Sounds good though.

I wouldn't go with Udemy I have to say - they are of the Ryanair / bargain basement variety. They'll sell your $500 course for a tenner! (Really).