The Entrepreneur Forum | Financial Freedom | Starting a Business | Motivation | Money | Success

Welcome to the only entrepreneur forum dedicated to building life-changing wealth.

Build a Fastlane business. Earn real financial freedom. Join free.

Join over 80,000 entrepreneurs who have rejected the paradigm of mediocrity and said "NO!" to underpaid jobs, ascetic frugality, and suffocating savings rituals— learn how to build a Fastlane business that pays both freedom and lifestyle affluence.

Free registration at the forum removes this block.

Currently at the lowest point of my entrepreneurial life…

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

Ivan Koretskyy

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
298%
Oct 2, 2021
46
137
Oregon, US
Here to vent to the forum, just going to be vulnerable here. Idc if my grammar is trash.

It’s been 1 year and 1 month since I started my entrepreneurial business, building a system that will automate for me when I do get people to use my product and I heavily invested 80% of my journey doing this. I’ve haven’t sold a single product yet. But I’ve already spent a few thousand of the business. I’m here living with my parents, with $2k total in my bank, no debt, but money is draining from my business.
I really believe my product is needed in the market and that it’s currently not there so I’m trying to capitalize it as much as I can when I do release the product. But now I’m having second guesses, what if people don’t want to buy it? What if all of that time i sacrificed and lost was meant for nothing? Sure I’ve massively learned from this journey because there’s no doubt if I fail I can make my second business better.

Although I still have my friends and family, I’ve sacrificed my social life to achieve this goal and I still haven’t finished creating it. My long term girlfriend and I are slowly separating and even though I try my best to keep my head up high, I’m coming in for an imminent breakup. I can tell from her actions, the way you can tell they are moving on hurts. Or they are more disagreeable or distant. So my anxiety, stress, and adrenaline is peaking more than ever. The feeling of someone you love resenting you sucks. This obviously didn’t come out of nowhere but I accept the fact I make mistakes and try to do better.

During my entrepreneurial business I only worked part time with very little hours so I can focus on my business. But it led me to losing money.

I’m now going to find a job and work full time to make me money while this business is slowed so I can get my funds right.

F*ck. This is a roller coaster. I know what I’m doing, and I can see the light. But it’s so far away, and it’s so hard… I know I must conquer no matter what. This pain I feel inside of me is temporary and it must be used to fuel my energy into improving and getting my business to succeed.

I don’t know if anyone got anything out of this but this is just one of my lowest points in the business and so many things are just no going the way as planned. Comment below if you guys are stuck in the same rut.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Johnny boy

Legendary Contributor
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
620%
May 9, 2017
2,929
18,173
27
Washington State
Your business is probably going to fail and your girlfriend is probably going to leave you.

And then you'll still be alive and totally fine.

Your problems are so trivial.

The difference is that when the same trivial problems happen to someone who has ice in their veins, they shrug it off and say "F*ck that bitch I'll date a girl twice as hot when I scale my business... I don't have to make any money right now, I live with my parents, I'm in a great spot. I love my life and appreciate being born in such a prosperous time in such a prosperous country with such incredible resources and the ability to use the internet to learn and connect with people much smarter than me. I have such incredible luck and am going to absolutely kill it". That guy is your competition and he's going to kick your a$$ 8 days a week, and he deserves it.

Anxiety is the cowards boogeyman. Every single time I ever feel 'anxious' or 'nervous', I think "that's my body telling me it's ready to compete. I'm excited". 100% of the time. People who coddle you and tell you it's okay to use that as a valid excuse are foolish, cowardly, enabling losers.

The more stress, responsibility, and emotional "weight" you put on your back and carry without worrying about it, the better your life gets. I guarantee you that whenever I noticed the feeling of hopelessness creeping up, I said to myself "this is probably the spot where other people quit, so if I just keep going it'll probably be easier soon." and goddamn....I was right.
 

Andy Black

Help people. Get paid. Help more people.
Staff member
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
370%
May 20, 2014
18,566
68,699
Ireland
It’s been 1 year and 1 month since I started my entrepreneurial business, building a system that will automate for me when I do get people to use my product
If you had a gun to your head and had to make a sale this week then what would you sell and what would you do?

While you're busy building stuff, who have you helped?
 

Roli

Platinum Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
160%
Jun 3, 2015
2,061
3,301
If you had a gun to your head and had to make a sale this week then what would you sell and what would you do?

While you're busy building stuff, who have you helped?
My old sales manager used to say something hat and I would answer, well I'd either have a sale, or be dead.

As you can see @Ivan Koretskyy you are getting a lot of tough love, the fact is you are meant to fail the first time. It's easy to think that everyone comes here, reads a few posts, starts a business and then becomes a millionaire in 12 months.

Yes those stories exist, but they are rare, you are living the story of the multitude. Start business, work hard, fail, some people repeat that five or six maybe more times before they hit success.

Remember failure is only failure if you don't learn from it.

Sit down and write down everything you've learned from this experience. One of those things might be "the market doesn't care what I think it needs. It only cares about what it actually needs."

Another might be; "love and affection is an important component to life and benefits my mental health."

I don't know, it's your list, make it then meditate on it.

Keep pushing man, you'll bounce back.
 

Andy Black

Help people. Get paid. Help more people.
Staff member
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
370%
May 20, 2014
18,566
68,699
Ireland
These might help:
 

Ivan Koretskyy

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
298%
Oct 2, 2021
46
137
Oregon, US
Anxiety is the cowards boogeyman. Every single time I ever feel 'anxious' or 'nervous', I think "that's my body telling me it's ready to compete. I'm excited". 100% of the time. People who coddle you and tell you it's okay to use that as a valid excuse are foolish, cowardly, enabling losers.
I absolutely agree and had this mentallity, this reality check is what I needed.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Ivan Koretskyy

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
298%
Oct 2, 2021
46
137
Oregon, US
Thank you everybody for the support. I just broke up with my girlfriend of 2.5 years before I got to reading your comments. Reading this is great and I’ll take all your support to heart and continue pushing forward. Times are tough, but i know I just gotta keep going. Love you guys.
 

AppMan

Bronze Contributor
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
68%
May 25, 2019
280
189
But it led me to losing money.
Business with a couple of thousand only, not a big deal whether it succeeds or fails, think about people who open restaurants or other kinds of businesses they get loans in hundreds thousands of dollars and bet all their future in that business. so dont sweat if it fails, especially if you look too young and still have time to try new things.

As for your product, I think you skipped "Product validation" step and that what make you really worried about the success this product can bring. Not a big deal, contact one of the potential customers and offer them an amazon gift card of
$100 ( if they are executives or doctors $250) in return of talking about your product for 15 minutes and seeing if they really think this can be used or not.
 

Ivan Koretskyy

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
298%
Oct 2, 2021
46
137
Oregon, US
Learn to test demand before going all in next time, it will save you a lot of time and resources, I learnt that here from one of Johnny Boy's thread.
I did only ever so slightly, I’ve handed out surveys at the mall to a few dozen people and just searched up market demand for products similar to mine. It’s clearly there in the market, but mine has a lot of differing value skews that make it an entirely new product to the market, for me I’d say is the best that’s out there but only the market can dictate that. And this is a product I genuinely believe is needed out there.

My rational conclusion is to do it and see what the market has to say.
 

mikecarlooch

Apprentice & Student Of The Game
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
343%
Jan 28, 2022
888
3,049
Florida
Your business is probably going to fail and your girlfriend is probably going to leave you.

And then you'll still be alive and totally fine.

Your problems are so trivial.

The difference is that when the same trivial problems happen to someone who has ice in their veins, they shrug it off and say "F*ck that bitch I'll date a girl twice as hot when I scale my business... I don't have to make any money right now, I live with my parents, I'm in a great spot. I love my life and appreciate being born in such a prosperous time in such a prosperous country with such incredible resources and the ability to use the internet to learn and connect with people much smarter than me. I have such incredible luck and am going to absolutely kill it". That guy is your competition and he's going to kick your a$$ 8 days a week, and he deserves it.

Anxiety is the cowards boogeyman. Every single time I ever feel 'anxious' or 'nervous', I think "that's my body telling me it's ready to compete. I'm excited". 100% of the time. People who coddle you and tell you it's okay to use that as a valid excuse are foolish, cowardly, enabling losers.

The more stress, responsibility, and emotional "weight" you put on your back and carry without worrying about it, the better your life gets. I guarantee you that whenever I noticed the feeling of hopelessness creeping up, I said to myself "this is probably the spot where other people quit, so if I just keep going it'll probably be easier soon." and goddamn....I was right.
Jonny boy = Real life Tyler Durden
 

Two Dog

Silver Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
142%
Feb 15, 2022
436
620

Kevin88660

Platinum Contributor
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
118%
Feb 8, 2019
3,457
4,080
Singapore
Here to vent to the forum, just going to be vulnerable here. Idc if my grammar is trash.

It’s been 1 year and 1 month since I started my entrepreneurial business, building a system that will automate for me when I do get people to use my product and I heavily invested 80% of my journey doing this. I’ve haven’t sold a single product yet. But I’ve already spent a few thousand of the business. I’m here living with my parents, with $2k total in my bank, no debt, but money is draining from my business.
I really believe my product is needed in the market and that it’s currently not there so I’m trying to capitalize it as much as I can when I do release the product. But now I’m having second guesses, what if people don’t want to buy it? What if all of that time i sacrificed and lost was meant for nothing? Sure I’ve massively learned from this journey because there’s no doubt if I fail I can make my second business better.

Although I still have my friends and family, I’ve sacrificed my social life to achieve this goal and I still haven’t finished creating it. My long term girlfriend and I are slowly separating and even though I try my best to keep my head up high, I’m coming in for an imminent breakup. I can tell from her actions, the way you can tell they are moving on hurts. Or they are more disagreeable or distant. So my anxiety, stress, and adrenaline is peaking more than ever. The feeling of someone you love resenting you sucks. This obviously didn’t come out of nowhere but I accept the fact I make mistakes and try to do better.

During my entrepreneurial business I only worked part time with very little hours so I can focus on my business. But it led me to losing money.

I’m now going to find a job and work full time to make me money while this business is slowed so I can get my funds right.

F*ck. This is a roller coaster. I know what I’m doing, and I can see the light. But it’s so far away, and it’s so hard… I know I must conquer no matter what. This pain I feel inside of me is temporary and it must be used to fuel my energy into improving and getting my business to succeed.

I don’t know if anyone got anything out of this but this is just one of my lowest points in the business and so many things are just no going the way as planned. Comment below if you guys are stuck in the same rut.
Space out your strategy to be endurant for multiple testings (failure) of course so that the road will be less rough.

There are a few variables in the math equation. Cashflow outside the business, time and capital vested to validate/invalidate an idea should neither be too big or too small.

A few thousand do not sound too high for a cost to test an idea but again you are committing too much time at the expense of cashflow outside the business.

If an idea is good it should work fast. You should see result in three month or else there is a better idea worth pursuing. You have not sold a single product is a big red flag as this is clearly a sign of not getting positive feedback. Either you are not pivoting fast enough or abandoning the whole thing fast. Ultimately the market decides what works and what is wanted.

Spend more time earning an income. Limit a hard cap of 4 month and 6k investment for the sequent ideas testing before product market fit is found. Prepare for 10-20 failures over the next 3-5 years instead of trying to exhaust yourself over 1-2 ideas over the same period.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.
Last edited:

Post New Topic

Please SEARCH before posting.
Please select the BEST category.

Post new topic

Guest post submissions offered HERE.

Latest Posts

New Topics

Fastlane Insiders

View the forum AD FREE.
Private, unindexed content
Detailed process/execution threads
Ideas needing execution, more!

Join Fastlane Insiders.

Top