If you’ve been trying to keep motivated while nothing seems to be working out for you, you’ve probably sat alone for a while as I have wondering what you did to anger the Gods so much that it was this hard just to make an honest living.
What probably makes it worse is seeing other people who seem to be doing things with less care than you thrive. I can’t tell you the number of times I saw a website that was so badly designed I would have been ashamed of it if it was mine, designed by a business with glowing reviews and thriving customers. Or adverts – something that felt thoughtless getting traction while something you put your heart into got seen by nobody.
That is a special sort of demoralising. It hammers home the point that effort is not rewarded in this life – not even close.
Nobody sees how hard you struggle for something and they don’t really care. In business, your worth is tied up a lot in how useful you can be – and that can feel quite dehumanising at times even though business is meant to be about people.
I think it’s fairer to say that your business is meant to be about people, but you need to market yourself to them as a product more than a person because they don’t need a friend – they need something useful.
Here are some reflections from an early-career web designer who has intimately know the hope and despair that characterises a solo enterprise, and who is still going on despite at times very honestly feeling utterly hopeless.
You’re not alone in this – I think at some point this tests us all. The winner is the one who endures it, though. So, keep going.
Gravity pulls down but life grows up.
When You Talk About Your Business, You Convince Yourself But Nobody Else
This one was a hard lesson for me and in many ways I’m still learning it.
In a state of calm we can all probably admit the seemingly obvious truth that business is really about people – other people.
A good business serves someone in some way; solves a problem, gives them something fun, or useful, etc. But when we talk about our businesses in the early days I think we spend more time convincing ourselves, and it’s hard to break that.
I was (and am) very keen on the idea of true ownership of websites, and security when it comes to hosting, and privacy online. And so I would extoll the virtues of my business: I use WordPress, which is open (not proprietary) and thus you own your website, not another company. I’d talk about my hosting being isolated so sites couldn’t suffer sideways infections like they do on shared hosting, making them significantly safer (and faster). I’d talk about how my sites used GDPR-compliant and open-source tools, and didn’t invasively track users but still provided useful analytics, etc.
All of these are genuinely useful and desirable features for my clients, too. It is with their interests in mind as much as my own values that I created this business. But telling the client these benefits in one ‘impressive’ long spec sheet is not impressive to them. It’s just boring. What do you mean GDPR-compliant, what’s the difference if it’s all tracking? Shared hosting, managed hosting, who cares as long as it’s cheap and fast? Not bothered about proprietary or not as long as it just works.
If I put two spades side by side, one with a wooden handle and one with a metal handle, I could sell both of them to you if I said things like “sturdy” or “eco-friendly construction from recycled materials” and so on, but what do you actually want that shovel for? To feel proud of it, or to stick it in a pile of mud and move it from A to B? You are a lot more interested in how it is to use, aren’t you? Not what it is made of. Even though what it’s made of does make a difference. In cold weather the wooden one will be nicer to use than the metal one, which will freeze your fingers. But I don’t then sell the wooden one saying “perfect because it’s made of wood”. I say “perfect because your hands don’t get cold while using it” – that’s a direct, tangible, easy-to-get benefit that anyone buying a shovel will find compelling.
In this way the better construction doesn’t actually make a selling point by itself: metal is stronger and will last longer but it’s not as nice to use and most people will be more swayed by comfort than endurance. Where your service has a hallmark of quality, you need to find some way to frame that as an outcome-benefit and not a specification sheet of premium materials with no obvious value.
Values do Matter, but Probably Not Up Front
Values give a business its character, and are an expression of the souls that founded it. They’re not trivial – but they usually aren’t very powerful when they’re the first thing stated. When people engage with a business they are not looking for a philosophy class, or a manifesto. They’re looking for a solution to something. They are self-interested so the business can’t be too, otherwise you talk past each other.
I think this is also a problem I had in the early days and will still find myself fighting against for some time, because if I am known for anything I don’t want that to be “cheap sites” or “profit” – I want my legacy to be that I was honest, and kind, and so on. I’m not a product, I’m a person.
This may be a problem that affects solos or small teams more, because your values are what unify and inspire you and you are your business. It’s not really separate from you like it is for a larger company with more defined roles for its staff. But principles don’t themselves sell – they build trust. You can’t sell honesty, but you can sell shovels if you tell the truth about the benefits to customers – and those customers will then think ‘you know what, they were telling the truth about those shovels – wood really is more comfortable’. And then you are known to be honest.
The successful business must talk to the customer. They want to know what they get out of working with you. Shifting your values to answer this isn’t the strongest move. In my case lines like, “you get an honest developer and a website you own” still leaves people thinking “that’s nice and everything but I’m not seeing this making me more money”. What benefit does that actually convey to them? Business isn’t usually a feel-good factor, it’s wealth generation.
It Never Feels Like Enough, And Everyone Will Make You Feel That Too
Another thing I still struggle with is the feeling that no matter how hard you try, it’s not enough. Two things feel like they’re confirming this for you. One is other people’s apathy, and two is their feedback – and so you don’t really win. Being ignored hurts and being noticed hurts – is now the time to slip in ‘no pain no gain’?
What do I mean? The first part I think is obvious: you try so hard to make powerful messages, lovely branding, and you put it out there (perhaps a little terrified, and excited – I certainly was) and… no, maybe the page just needs refreshing. No? Alright, I’ll give it ten minutes. No, I couldn’t wait – I’ll refresh again now. Hmm.
Suddenly it’s 7 hours later and nobody has so much as liked your post. This will frustrate and demoralise in probably equal measure, it hurts. Your business is you, and this silence looks like rejection, and that rejection feels like judgement. You start having ideas like ‘clearly I’m not good enough, nobody cared, but why?’
You could torture yourself forever with this. I certainly lost many hours to it. I write this in the wake of that sentiment, in fact. But why would anyone care? It’s a noisy world out there and you’re just adding more noise. There’s only so much wealth, and you’re trying to take your piece of it. This isn’t a condemnation of selfishness – it’s a perfectly legitimate thing to (want to) do. But why should anyone else care? To most people you are an irrelevance and to those others, you’re competition. Nobody’s batting for your team. The hardest lesson from starting a business is that there’s nobody waiting for you. There isn’t a seat at the table. You don’t deserve anything. You have to work for it.
And that’s the second agony – you have worked for it, and you care so much. Why does nobody recognise it? Why is it never enough? When people would seek to give me advice in this state it was often more irritating than consoling. You heard the same things you already knew – just persevere, put yourself out there, and so on. As if you weren’t doing that already.
You’re not asking for a shortcut, you just want it to feel fair. Surely effort ought to get its reward? Everyone notices where you are just short of the mark but not how hard you tried just to get that close, and that’s such a lonely feeling.
Then then you get noticed, what do people usually land on first? Imperfection.
A member of my family worked in gardening for some years and the tale was as old as time – they could spend all day making a customer’s garden look beautiful and when they were packing away, just as the customer came out to admire the work, a leaf would fall from a tree into the lawn. “Missed a bit!”
Many a true word said in jest.
So, Do I Have A Solution?
No, not really. I’m not trying to sell you something. I’m trying to hold a space for the unique dismay and despair of a new business. I don’t have the answers yet because I am not through it yet. I know what the pain feels like, but I don’t yet know that ‘on top of the world’ bit when you’re not worrying about something or doubting yourself. Does it ever come? I’m not totally convinced it does.
Because while things do grow up, gravity never stops pulling down. You’re always defying fate. The struggle is, I think, always uphill. I’m not saying it doesn’t get easier – the stronger you are the less you feel gravity – but also the smaller you are the less you feel it, and perhaps there’s a cruel temptation in this to not try and grow – but rather, to burrow into something comfortable.
If that works, I see no reason to suggest not doing it – but wealth and growth don’t separate. I think running a business is probably great when you’re riding the waves but sometimes you are going to go under them, and that’s the deal, right? You didn’t want to be under someone else’s control so you forefeit a stable salary for freedom, and freedom is a double-edged sword. Liberty is weighed down by responsibility: and when things aren’t working, it’s yours to take.
But so is the glory when you rise above it. So, onwards. Once more unto the breach.
Until next time, may good health and happiness be yours.