What It’s Like to Start a Business (Before You Actually Start It)

In less than a month, I will encounter what will surely be one of the most important moments of my life – the launching of a business I have been working on for more than a year.

I wanted to write this article precisely at this point in time because this business has not yet failed nor succeeded. I know that might sound weird, but let me explain.

There’s a lot of content out there from the perspective of the successful entrepreneur. There also exists a considerable number of pieces (though fewer in number) on what it’s like to try to start a business and fail.

But there isn’t that much content on what it’s like to be an entrepreneur before you’ve actually "truly" become one.

For a little more than a year, I have been working full-time on a clothing brand. I’ve put in all the money I have into it and regularly put in ~80 hours of work a week. I guess I’m what you call “all-in.”

Even still, it’s weird for me to call myself an entrepreneur, simply because I haven’t launched the business yet. If I had to give myself a true title besides “Co-Founder and CEO,” it would probably be "pre-entrepreneur."

My hope is that what I’ve learned up to this point can provide some valuable insights from this rarely discussed perspective. Before any success or failure can cloud my thinking or bias me in any way, it’s through this "pre-entrepreneur perspective" that I wanted to share my unadulterated thoughts on what it’s like to start a business (before you actually start it).

--

To provide some context, though it was my dream to start a business ever since I was 10 years old, the first 25 years of my life went by without any true entrepreneurial endeavor. Somehow, life just always got in the way.

It wasn’t until the combination of working crazy hours in investment banking for a few years and my mother’s diagnosis with ALS until I realized that I needed to do what I truly wanted to do in life. (You can read a bit more about that in my last article – Why I Quit Investment Banking to Travel the World).

Upon quitting and after a bit of traveling, finally, after 15 years of dreaming about it, I started a business.

There’s a lot of good advice out there that you shouldn’t start a business and work full-time on your idea until it’s proven and gains some traction. I actually agree with this.

Though it would’ve been great to start a side hustle and eventually convert it into a full-time business, I had just traveled for 8 months and had no job, which I optimistically viewed as a clean slate. I came across an idea I felt was worth pursuing and thought I could test the idea out in a few months. That leads me to lesson numero uno.

--

Lesson #1 – Starting a business will take a lot more time than you think it will because your initial idea (probably) sucks

Unless you are an entrepreneurial genius, I would venture to say that most entrepreneurs know that the first phase of your new business can be best summarized in one word (and meme):

(Watch one of the all-time best scenes from Friends if you don’t get the “Pivot” reference.)

The thing is, when I first thought of my business idea, I thought it was a pretty fantastic one. A year later in hindsight, I can’t imagine success from any of my initial plans.

To give you just a brief example, we went from being an upscale female fashion company to a women’s streetwear brand and finally now to a company that creates high quality garments with artists. We officially changed our company name 4 times in 6 months, wasting hundreds of dollars on now-useless website domains.

However, it’s totally okay that your initial idea sucks. Nike started off as a distributor of Japanese shoes. One of Apple’s earlier products, the Lisa, was a commercial failure. The list goes on and on.

I can’t yet tell you how to best pivot your way to entrepreneurial success because I haven’t achieved anything yet. I know a great team helps and I have some other ideas on what works, but I don't think I yet have the credibility.

What I do know is this – your first idea sucking is part of the process, and that’s okay. It’s normal.

Lesson #2 – Use conservative assumptions to estimate your budget…Then double it

Even with a few years of finance under my belt and even while using what I thought were conservative assumptions, we ended up needing twice the money we initially budgeted in order to launch the company.

It turns out, starting a business (especially in the retail world) is really, really, really expensive.

Of course, if you're in a field like technology and you’re a CS wizard, you can whip out a “Minimum Viable Product” (MVP) and test it out in the world in a few weeks. (Even then, truly launching the company will be expensive once you need a team.)

But in the fashion world and with our strategy, it would be impossible to launch without putting in tens of thousands of dollars at a minimum. For some context, this is mainly due to the quality of our garments, the artists we need to compensate, and marketing.

Thus, one of the most important lessons I’ve learned is that businesses can die abruptly if it runs out of cash. It may sound like an exaggeration, but it’s not.

As a brief example, the cost of goods sold for our garments ended up being double what we initially planned it to be. If we didn’t quickly raise the extra money we needed to pay our supplier when we realized our initial budget was too low, we wouldn’t have been able to receive the goods. Then we’d have no products and no business.

There are also an endless number of costs that arise that you just can’t expect until you are close to launching. Here are just a few examples:

• COGS of garments – expected $20K vs. actual $40K
• Shipping of goods (internationally) – expected $3K vs. actual $6K
• Tariffs – expected $1K vs. actual $5K
• Annual fee just to do business in California – expected $0 vs. actual $800
• Marketing including website, photoshoot, logo design – expected $8K vs. actual $15K

And so much more!

So, if you’re a noobie entrepreneur like me, you should expect to need a lot more than your reasonable estimations says you will.

Lesson #3 – Embrace the lonely road

The beginning of a business is a lonely journey. Having previously worked at a large international company beforehand with thousands of employees, working alone or just with my co-founder took some time getting used to.

But beyond just not having as many people around, I've found that the loneliness you feel as a pre-entrepreneur is a unique feeling. It's not the kind of loneliness you feel from the lack of a romantic relationship because that kind of loneliness is (mostly) rooted in a longing for intimacy.

When you start your first business, the loneliness you feel is not rooted in a yearning for intimacy; it's rooted in a desire to be understood.

You have this idea you think is great and you want everyone to understand it too. But even if you tell your friends about it, remember lesson #1 - your initial ideas probably suck.

This means that when you're first starting your business, everyone is going to have doubts because you're constantly pivoting and refining your idea (lesson #2). Obviously, you can't keep updating all the people you know about every little business pivot, so where does this lead you?

(Occasional) feelings of loneliness. A desire for others to understand why you are pouring in all this time and effort into what they probably think is not the greatest idea.

I've found that during these times of loneliness, the most helpful thing you can do is to lean on your team and company mission. Working with people who understand what you're trying to accomplish and align with your vision is the best temporary antidote until you are able to launch your business.

Lesson #4 – Oscillation is the name of the game

I can’t tell you the number of hours I’ve spent wondering if my business was a good idea or not. I think once you launch your first business, you get a lot of data and it becomes increasingly clear what works and what doesn't.

I think a huge part of the pre-entrepreneurial journey is a constant, unending oscillation between:

“This is a great idea! I love what I’m doing and I can’t imagine doing anything else! This is going to work!”

and

“This is a terrible idea…Does anything I’m doing make sense? Will people get it? Wait...am I an idiot?”

This was especially true during the formative initial parts of my journey, where I was constantly pivoting and realizing my ideas sucked. I don't know how many hours I’ve spent lying on my bed staring at my ceiling wondering if I was insane for pursuing this business.

I believe that this oscillation, triggered and fueled by self-doubt, is a part of every pre-entrepreneur’s journey. But I no longer see it as a bad thing.

It was only because of the self-doubt I had in my business that I became even more critical about it and thought deeply of ways to improve it.

This helped sharpen our strategy and ultimately, strengthen the company’s vision and products. I don’t face as many oscillations these days, but sometimes, when I get those self-doubts, I no longer fear them.

Instead, I listen to what they’re trying to tell me.

--

I have a long way to get to where I want to be, but I hope that even without any record of entrepreneurial success, this article provided you with some interesting insight on what it's like to start a business (before you actually start it).

Part 2 will be about overcoming the mental hurdles of the pre-entrepreneurial journey.

If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments below and feel free to follow @astheticstudios on Instagram for our upcoming launch in December.

Thanks for reading and for your time!