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Feeling overwhelmed

AbiH

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Hey guys!
I’m working on building a tech product from scratch and starting a company around it. However I am completely overwhelmed, do you have any advice for a new entrepreneur? Have any tips and tricks for me not to get burnt out?
I go through these phases where I’m really motivated, to phases where I don’t work on it for weeks at a time. I’ll take all of your advice!
Thanks!
 
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Simon Angel

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You have to just stick with it. Imagine a scale or a growth chart that showcases your business' progress over a 12 month period. Let's say Month 1 is when you started without any prior experience.

Month 1: Big increase in knowledge, drive, motivation. Few earnings, if any.

Month 2: Mostly a repeat of Month 1, with perhaps one or few clients/sales/connections etc.

Month 3 and perhaps Month 4, Month 5: A flatline. Business hasn't really grown or shrunk, you're having difficulty approaching the fact that you should be charging more and how to do it, drive and motivation are worse than the previous months. You wake up in the morning thinking "maybe I should just do X instead".

Usually this is the "GOLDEN" period where if you show will-power despite your low drive, ambition and results, all of a sudden you will gain a profound realization and the growth chart will shoot up 10, 20x and beyond, an exponential growth.

Month 6-12: Massive increase in clients/sales/connections/whatever, you feel like you've cracked the "code" to sales and business and know that even if you were to start completely over, you'd completely skip the flatline period and go straight to the exponential growth phase.

Eventually you'll be holding the fruits of your labor in your hands and thanking yourself you stuck with it rather than starting over with another venture, only to reach the same flatline/plateau and quit again.
 

RazorCut

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Feeling overwhelmed is usually a result of your plan not being granular enough. Take some time out and think everything through. Map out every stage of your business. Then ignore everything but your current stage. Put it all out of your mind as it will just create noise.

Now break that stage down into the smallest logical parts you can. Now you have a comprehensive ToDo list.

Map that out in Google Calender, Trello, Notion or whatever you use for workflow. Then just take it one task at a time and follow through. Once you finish that stage reward yourself with a couple of days off and something nice to mark the milestone. Then take the next stage and repeat.

If you are in the financial position to outsource parts of the process certainly consider it as it will lighten the load.
 
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rocket99

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Why do you feel overwhelmed? Are you on a time crunch? Are you constantly thinking about everything you have left to do? Going through phases where you are motivated and not motivated is normal. I've been working on a SAAS business for the last year on the side and there are times I am like an energizer bunny working until 4am and others when I don't touch it for two weeks, so it is normal.

@RazorCut is correct. Try creating a road map of what you have left to do with milestones in order to break things up into manageable pieces. I would also stick to the parts you truly enjoy and outsource the others. Or outsource the parts you do enjoy doing but suck up too much of your time and therefore make you feel like you aren't making progress. I really enjoy UX/UI design, but it takes forever to get things perfect. So I just sketch out the design in Illustrator and hand it off to an affordable graphic designer I found on 99designs. And guess what, it looks better than I could have done myself anyways.

Also, seek out a mentor (in addition to this forum). It sounds like you don't have one. The value a mentor can bring who has been down your road before is invaluable. An example, when I started my current business I was trying to do everything. My mentor asked me how much I would pay a guy to do one of the tasks I was killing myself doing. I said about $13/hr. He said "so you're telling me your time is worth $13/hr?". Really put things in perspective for me and changed the ways I approached things.
 

Andy Black

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What positive feedback loops have you created?

Are you getting market echos, or are you in your own echo chamber building stuff for weeks on end?

What goal do you have this week to hit a new milestone that will keep you motivated this week?


Complete this sentence:

"On Sunday evening when I look back on this week I'll be pleased with progress if I've done XYZ."

What is XYZ for this week?



My goal last week was to build a wee machine to get email signups every day for a budget of €5/day.

My goal this week is to get views on a new YouTube video by emailing that list.
  • To do that I need to finish setting up the YouTube channel, finish editing a video I started last night, and then send an email to my list. If I get views I'll be delighted. Then I'll add that email into the autoresponder series for all future signups.
  • If it works then I'll likely create a video every week, email folks, and add it to the automation.
Next week I'd like to have a goal to earn $1 by offering something of value to my list. It will depend on what happens this coming week. It depends on how this week goes.

I'm not planning any further than that, but I do have an overall vision I'm heading towards.

I don't allow myself to get overwhelmed with "busy" tasks. The market doesn't pay for busyness after all!

I keep myself motivated by hitting market feedback milestones.
 

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