Behind Every Success There Are Many Struggles

(Before you start, don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @debaenes)

This year, 2015, marks my 10th anniversary as an entrepreneur and despite the fact that I struggled to get there, I wouldn't change anything from my journey. I know that I will probably face greater challenges in the future, but the first few years of starting a business are in my opinion the most difficult to handle. Most people just hear one side of the story and they hear nothing about what’s really going on behind the scenes. Keep in mind that for every little success, there are many failures and lots of struggles that are never heard of. This is what I want to talk about here.

I have a lot of respect for people that want to start a business, but I think a lot of them underestimate the challenge they are facing. Here are a few struggles I’ve faced in the last 10 years and trust me there’s a good chance that you’ll face them too:

Earn The Lowest Salary

There’s a good chance that you’ll earn nothing from your hard work, and this can last for a very long time. Once you’re able to afford a salary, it’s probably going to be the lowest salary of the company. Are you ready for that? When I started my business, I had to work at another job 15 hours per day on Saturday and Sunday, while I was working more than full-time at GSoft as well as still going to school in the evening during the week. This way I could pay my rent, get my diploma, and build my business. This was a lot of work and the return was very small at the time, so I really had to believe in the future to keep the motivation going.

So Many Product Failures

I tried to launch around 12 products since the beginning of GSoft and most of them just died. The odds of launching a successful product are so low that you start with almost no chance of success. There are still many companies out there trying to do it, but most of them will experience a lot of failures through the journey and they have to be ready for it. When it’s just not working, you have to be willing to pull the plug and stop burning good cash. I made a call just like that when we trashed Sharegate completely in 2011 and decided to restart everything from scratch. It’s one thing to trash a product, but to restart the same product all over again is even harder. Cash is not unlimited, so you don’t have many chances to make it happen!

Unhappy Employees

If you don’t know it yet, it’s the employees that make the difference in an organization and there’s nothing worse than having unhappy employees on the ship. Don’t get me wrong, I know that employers are usually responsible for it, but sometimes it’s very difficult to fully understand why employees are unhappy. We’ve been through some rough paths over the last few years and we always managed to get back on our feet, but it’s very stressful and we sometimes imagine things worse than they really are. Always be concerned about your employee happiness and it will always keep you on your way to make things better.

No Profit At All And Clueless Of Why

I have a secret for you: If you run a business that doesn’t make any profit, you’ll have a hard time surviving in this world. Actually, that’s not totally true considering what’s going on in the tech industry, but that’s something I don’t want to cover here. You get the idea and the point is that you need to understand what’s going on in your business, and if can’t do that, surround yourself with people who can. We experienced that a few years ago when we unexpectedly realized that we were losing money each month and had no idea why. We had more projects, more employees and more of everything, but we were still operating as if we were still a small business and it just didn’t work as expected. Growing a business is great, but it brings new problems and you need to be ready to face them. I had a few very stressful episodes, but now everything is under control and the business can handle the growth. Bring it on!

No Project To Work On

We’re a software company, so before we had our own products, we were only developing custom solutions for customers. So as long as we had projects coming in, business was good. It happened a few times that we didn’t have any project to work on and everyone at the office was wondering what to do next. At some point, it was so bad that my partner Maxime in charge of sales had to cancel his trip to Thailand so he could find some development projects to work on right after the Christmas break in January. It’s insanely stressful since it totally cuts the stream of revenues and working on useless projects is not motivating at all. At the time, we were struggling very much with that situation, but I see it very differently now since it’s one of the reasons we started to build Sharegate which is now a major success for us. That’s why you need to stay calm and try to turn the situation around.

Competition Is Willing To Do Anything To Kill Your Business

Competition is very healthy and I wish every company to have good competitors in their respective markets. Why? Because it keeps you alert and makes you push the boundaries all the time. Unfortunately, it can get very nasty and some competitors will be willing to do anything just to kill your business, even if it’s totally outside the “acceptable” norms. I’m not here to cry about it, but it happened to us and added a new pain on top of everything else. If you’re successful, it will happen to you and you’ll need to deal with it. We live in a nasty world and this will never change.

No Callback Or Reply From Potential Customers

I’ve sent so many emails in my life and most of them never got replied to. It gets very depressing when you’re trying to reach someone that could make the difference and that person is completely avoiding you. Sometimes, I'm just asking for 2 minutes of their time and they couldn’t care less about me. It’s part of the game and what I like to say is that if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

Fights With Your Partners

Fights between partners are responsible for many business failures and I can guarantee that you’ll experience a lot of them. It can get really nasty and completely transform your business in a bad way if they are not managed properly. Partners are the people you should be building a masterpiece with and disputes will do the complete opposite, which is very dangerous for the survival of the business. We are 5 partners at GSoft and we were told by some people we wouldn’t survive with that many. Yes there was a few fights that created a very bad energy in the office, but with good discipline we were able to go through each of them and grow stronger every time.

The original Fab 4:

Fire A Friend

That is not easy to deal with since you spend a lot of time at the office and you end up building great friendships, but sometimes the business must make difficult choices for its survival. Some people will have to go at some point and it gets very emotional when friendships are involved. I recently went through the process of firing someone I considered a friend and it was a very tough call I had to live with. It’s clearly not something I want to re-experience soon and I hope you won’t have to do it often in your life.

No Time For Your Family And Friends

The amount of work required to build a solid business is insane at the beginning since it’s usually just your partners and yourself doing most of the work. Also, you usually have no experience doing the work, so you end up spending twice the time it should normally take because you have to learn how to do it. In the end, the remaining time for your family and your friends is close to nothing and this can have a huge impact on your life depending on your situation. I was lucky enough to build a business with my friends, but I could certainly have been a better boyfriend in the early days. Just keep in mind that your social life will suffer and I don’t think there’s any way to escape that. This is why you need to surround yourself with people who understand and accept your lifestyle.

People Talking Shit About You And Your Company

Even if you’re doing your best to make everyone happy, there will always be people bad mouthing you or your business. It happened to us with ex-employees who were fired or left the company, and were trying to put the blame on the company rather than take responsibility in what happened to them. When you’re putting so much effort on such an important life project, it’s frustrating to learn that someone is talking shit about it for no good reason. Unfortunately, we’re limited in what we control in life and we have to keep our energy for things we control instead. I learned to think that way and now I couldn’t care less about what people say.

Sharks Are Everywhere

There are sharks everywhere in this world and the more you’re successful, the more they will come for you. They will find any reason to throw a lawsuit at you and make your life difficult. Unfortunately, it’s part of the game and you must not let them distract you from your vision. F%? &?$k them.

To finish this article, I want to share with you a quote I like to tell my team all the time:

If it was easy, everyone would do it.