You don’t need to be doing things to reach your goal. Sometimes, the best way to get what you want is not to do anything. Here is how to succeed in entrepreneurship despite the setbacks.
For the first time, I dealt with a semi-fraud client. But after that, I felt that I am really a business owner, so I wanted to talk about how to succeed in entrepreneurship. I feel like I am an entrepreneur.
Before I tell you the story, here is how to succeed in entrepreneurship, especially despite the setbacks:
- Start from scratch and take one step at a time.
- Be professional despite the unprofessionalism of the person you deal with.
- Don’t quit jobs or have a side hustle if your project is not generating money.
- Wear many hats if you can’t hire an employee for some reason.
- Be inspired by someone who has achieved what you want to achieve.
Let’s begin.
How to Succeed in Entrepreneurship Despite the Setbacks
I met a client on Upwork who wasted my time. The task was to write a 1,000-word article about domestic violence. I wrote it in three hours and submitted it quickly.
But he said I wrote it with AI. He even showed me a screenshot of the results from the AI detector that he said was the best in the industry. He asked for a refund.
I accepted the refund request because it was just money. No big deal. The big deal to me was when I was accused of using an AI tool when I spent three hours on that article. It was written from scratch!
I knew that the AI detector that he was seeing as gold was not accurate because I didn’t use an AI tool. I wanted to defend myself, so I went to his website. He gave me the URL before the project started.
I pasted one of his articles that he wrote into the tool, and it says it was written by AI when it was not. I showed it to him. I just virtually slapped him in the face and proved him wrong.
I honestly felt better and more empowered. It is empowering when you win against clients like that, and that feeling made me want to start my own business.
I decided to monetize my passion projects.
That was the most unreasonable client I dealt with on the platform so far. I had issues with a few clients, but he was the worst. I believe I will meet more clients like him in the future.
Setbacks are part of the journey. It may be easy for me to dismiss those clients now, but it took me over three years to be the type of person who can dismiss bad clients just like that.
I have been working on my projects since 2019, and when I was starting, I was mentally and emotionally weak.
You need inner strength if you want to succeed in entrepreneurship. I had to deal with difficult people and be in uncomfortable situations to have that inner strength.
Let’s dive in! Here is how to succeed in entrepreneurship despite the setbacks!
1. Start from scratch and take one step at a time.
Before I monetized my passion projects, I was doing it as a hobby. I started in 2019, and I am proud to say that it lasts longer than many businesses. Many businesses fail in their first year!
Of course, my projects were not businesses. Sales were not important, so I could keep going despite the $0 earnings.
But it just shows that money makes things complicated. If you want to succeed in entrepreneurship, it will help you to stay in business if you focus less on money.
I decided to be a content creator and earn from content monetization. I am not looking forward to being a millionaire from it. It wasn’t my plan to monetize my projects in the first place.
According to Forbes, content creation is now a legitimate job, and many children aspire to be one.
When I saw that I earned $0.02 from my blog, I was happy because I had no expectations. Other people would be disappointed because it was a small amount.
I have been building projects from scratch for almost 4 years, so I know too well that I will not see anything huge in the first few years. If I do, then that is a miracle and I will be grateful for that.
One miracle is A Lover in Disguise.
I started publishing posts on this blog in December of 2020. It was surprising when some blog posts ranked on the first page after just 4 months! And those blog posts are still on the first page until today!
Being a writer who has ranked many blog posts is superior to a writer who only writes blog posts optimized for search engines. Truth be told, I am better than other writers if we talk about SEO.
I have results, and I own those results as my personal blog is the key player.
It is hard to prove that you are the one who ranked other people’s posts because the blog owner can say otherwise.
2. Be professional despite the unprofessionalism of the person you deal with.
I have met a few clients who challenged my professionalism. That client I talked about earlier, I saw his message the moment I woke up that morning.
It ruined my mood.
He requested a refund and ended the contract without digging deep into the situation. That was unprofessional.
But I remained calm. I said that I felt offended to be accused of using an AI tool when I spent 3 hours writing the article, but I also said that I understood.
I don’t curse the same way other people do; I curse in my own way. In my vocabulary, “goshness,” “shucks,” and “gosh this person” are sometimes the equivalent of other people’s facts and sheets.
CNN says that saying bad words is a sign of intelligence because you know many words, honesty because you don’t hide your irritation, and creativity because it uses the right side of the brain.
I said my curse words many times to myself because I was so disappointed with that client. I thought it would affect my Job Success Score, so it also frustrated me.
It happened in February, and I would be a Top Rated freelancer on Upwork around April. I didn’t send proposals after that incident because I didn’t want to meet clients who might ruin my Job Success Score.
As a result, I became a Top Rated freelancer in the last week of March!
Pausing can be a strategy, too. You don’t always need to be doing things to reach your goal. Sometimes, the best way to get what you want is not to do anything.
3. Don’t quit jobs or have a side hustle if your project is not generating money.
As I was envisioning the life I want to have years from now, I realized that being a content creator and entrepreneur is more enjoyable than being a freelancer. You have more freedom.
If you are a freelancer, you may be your own boss, but your income depends on how much time you are willing to spend helping other businesses.
If you are a content creator, you create the content you are interested in at the pace you are comfortable with, so no pressure. You can also create whatever you like, so your earning potential is huge.
If you are an entrepreneur selling products, time is not the main currency to succeed but ideas and marketing. If you create one amazing product, you can sit back and relax once it becomes a hit. Kind of like a passive income.
Indeed explains that entrepreneurs and business owners are different. Business owners are owners of businesses, while entrepreneurs start businesses based on a unique idea.
If you are selling services, it is a bit similar to freelancing, but you can offer many because you can hire a team to help you out with everything. You don’t do the work.
I am planning to freelance on the side and be a full-time content creator and entrepreneur. I am going to submit guest posts to gain enough popularity as well as earn money. Some blogs pay for guests.
But I need to be a full-time freelancer while I wait for my creations to generate money.
4. Wear many hats if you can’t hire an employee for some reason.
How to succeed in entrepreneurship? Be willing to wear many hats!
I have many projects, and I work with several clients. If you look at it from the outside, some of you may wonder how I am able to manage all of those.
I base my posting schedule on my priorities, commitments, resources, and lifestyle.
As I am a writer by profession, I need to ensure A Lover in Disguise is updated regularly. Currently, my posting schedule is every 15th and 30th of the month.
A Lover in Disguise has a podcast channel. I update that every week.
If you think you have no purpose in life, pursuing your passion may help you with your happiness. Thrive Global shares the benefits of pursuing passions.
I also write on my personal blog, A Writer in Disguise, a sociopolitical blog, and other blogs. A Writer in Disguise is not demanding as I publish content with around 500 words every 5 days, and I barely do SEO.
But guest blogging takes work as I need to ensure the posts I will submit follow the publications’ guidelines.
So, how many times did you see “I”?
I am alone on this journey. I wear many hats. I am very much hands-on. If I would hire someone, that would be for social media marketing. I hate social media.
5. Be inspired by someone who has achieved what you want to achieve.
There is a content creator *slash* entrepreneur whom I admire, and I love watching her YouTube videos. She is confident, brave, intelligent, and super skilled.
I don’t want to achieve what she has achieved, but I like what she does with her life. It seems like she does what she wants and doesn’t care about what people say.
The point is, if you want to succeed in your chosen field of endeavor, it will help you be motivated to keep going if there is someone who inspires you.
That person doesn’t need to be popular.
They could be your friend, your parent, your significant other, the cashier at your favorite cafe, a random stranger on the street, the list goes on.
Those people who look down on you and don’t believe in you can also be great motivators. Anger can make you do amazing things if you handle it properly.
According to Psychology Today, people get angry when what they wanted to happen didn’t happen.
I have been able to walk alone, thanks to my introversion and perpetual singleness. But I lack motivation sometimes, and I look for people who can inspire me.
If I am in lazy mode, I watch videos on YouTube or read threads on Reddit.
What I usually search for are work vlogs, weight loss stories, freelancing, and tablet-first setups. I also take online courses to earn certificates.
Last Words
If you want to know about the soft skills that can help you succeed in entrepreneurship, I think patience and resiliency come first. Don’t give up when you don’t see results.
If you don’t have money to build a team, hard skills are a bit more important in my opinion because you need them to build your product or sell a service, which is what will make you money.
There are free and cheap tools that you can use if you have a limited budget. You can also hire people from third-world countries as they are more affordable. Just be careful who you pick.
So that’s how to succeed in entrepreneurship!
If you enjoyed reading how to succeed in entrepreneurship despite the setbacks, here is a video of me talking about how I manage my projects by myself:
