Hitting a wall in the desert of desertion

[Juke]

Can you relate to this scenario?

I started my journey in to entrepreneurship in early 2020, just before the global pandemic started. I had been getting more and more sick and tired of my job as a sales rep for a software company for some time and decided to design my own product in the industry I was familiar with. I had no experience in product design but a lot of experience in the industry and confident in what it needed. I had to teach myself how to design software through online courses and books but got myself to a level where I could design the first version of our MVP and send to a friend to code.

This whole process took some time but throughout, I remained extremely motivated, investing many hours of my time and a good chunk of money on the web design, logo design, legal advice and web hosting. Until…

It’s now been months since I made any real progress on getting the MVP live. The initial excitement of launching my own business seems to have dissipated, and I am really struggling to find the motivation to work on it. I am still doing well in my job but with limited motivation there too and it is quite demanding mentally. I feel too tired to work on my business in the evenings and weekends. I am finding myself becoming more distractible by things like TV, video games, the internet or reading books. Anything that doesn’t take too much brain power or creativity outside work hours.

I know MJ calls this period the desert of desertion in his books and I’m sure I’m not the only one who has experienced it.

Is anyone else here able to share their story about travelling through the desert? Does my story sound familiar? What did you find helped you make it through the journey?

Any insight from anyone with this experience would be much appreciated.

I know everyone is different, and so I'm not asking for a prescription from anyone but at the very least I hope this to be an interesting topic of discussion.

Many thanks in advance.

 

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[Parks]

Can or have you already gauged/test the market on the product your working on?

Seeing good results and having customers ready to buy can be a good motivator to get out of the desert. Just gotta keep pushing and start kicking in the discipline.

 

[Juke]

Can or have you already gauged/test the market on the product your working on?

Seeing good results and having customers ready to buy can be a good motivator to get out of the desert. Just gotta keep pushing and start kicking in the discipline.

I haven't tested it to be honest but I have seen very similar products do well in the market (or well enough) to know it should work.

I would love to get some customers ready to buy, however I am in a tricky situation to be honest. There will be a conflict of interest with my employer if I launch while still employed so the plan is to quit my job as soon as the product is ready and then start selling.

The problem now is getting the product ready to sell, which is taking some time and effort.

Thanks for your comment and encouragement. I know I need to keep pushing. I think perhaps that deep down this post is a shameless plea for encouragement. We salespeople are sensitive creatures ha