I started a business in e-commerce about a 1 year ago after having two other failed businesses. One of the fails did generate revenue, but things went south and so I never profited. During those two business I remember getting super excited during them to the point where I'd start thinking that I had basically made it financially. In the end when they didn't work out, I decided to never get too emotionally attached to an end goal until it actually came into fruition.
As of now I have generated some revenue (not profit) from my current business which when my friend saw, he decided to start as well. I have been giving him advice and helping him so far since this is his first real business. During this journey he'd repeatedly say the same thing, "Are you excited about this? We're actually making money!" to which I'd reply "Not really. Not until I can actually withdraw and use this money for personal things." I tried to tell him to avoid getting too excited because seeing number on a screen doesn't actually mean anything until it actually does something for your life. He then said that I was having a pessimistic view of things. Am I actually?
I don't really want to put him down. I believe in my business but on the off chance things don't go well I just don't want either of us to feel devastated about it.
Was called a pessimist after I told a friend that just started his business to not get too excited until he sees real results.
byu/Plexicity inEntrepreneur
Posted by Plexicity
1 Comment
You’re both right. He’s too excited, you’re too pessimistic.
The correct response to ‘we’re making money that we can’t use yet’ isn’t throwing a party, it’s also not ‘nah, shit ain’t real mate’. The correct response is saying ‘yea we’re doing good eh, just gotta keep working on it’ and then maybe celebrating with like, a beer, or something. It’s worth being happy about, it’s not worth messaging all your highschool bullies to tell them they were wrong.
Nice middle ground.