Congrats on taking the leap!

My advice is to view this as a marathon. Don’t let the gnawing pain of uncertainty, fear, anxiety, doubt and loneliness discourage you, just stick to your mission. Focus on your goal and don’t stress too much about the bank balance!

Given you’ve diagnosed her as negative the challenge is going to be taking her criticism with a grain of salt. I get it too, my GF is very negative and risk sensitive. I try to just accept that and see it for what it is instead of getting bummed out by it.

You never wanna be so high on your own supply that you ignore the rammifications. You do however want to be rationally optimistic and have the growth mindset of putting in the work. The most successful entrepeneurs seek out harsh criticism as an important counter-balance to their beliefs so they know the cons as well as the pros.

If you can find a way to learn to accept criticism as the “con” POV then it will be valuable. If you’re too early in the process and the negativity will hurt you then you should probably just not discuss it with her.

Congrats on your success, thanks for the detailed response.

What’s the process for getting started, where did you buy, did you buy with savings or credit. How did you get hooked up with the weddings/events circuit, what market are you in?

Details MF!

I think you have to look at things for a more global aspect:
Who is going to pay you, and why should they?
What existing contacts can I mine for customers?
What can I do to make more money, should I get hired by a bigger company?
What can I do to be a better freelancer, get more customers for higher $?

It’s hard dude. The freelance grind is very competitive and filled with lots of bullshit. Don’t beat yourself up. Developing the bullshit side of business (getting customers, charging $) is not fun for creative types (I’m in video) but it’s what actually pays the bills.

Underestimating how difficult things can be.

Every sale you close is lucky, but you increase your odds of finding luck by increasing your number of pitches.

Belief in myself. I have been through some real shit months/years and when the worries start to overwhelm me I default to:
“I don’t know how but it’s going to work out in the end…”
Lo and behold, it does! The more you believe in yourself and your success the better you feel and the better results you get.

From what I can tell it’s impossible to avoid copyright theft in China.

Do your best to out perform, discredit, diminish and outrank your competition. Let it be known that they are thieves, sell inferior products (hopefully at least lol) and if you’re really petty bomb them with bad reviews/blast whatever social media. There’s an ethical line but they drew first blood and are taking food off your plate…

" It seems like nowadays the only wealth that lasts is being born into generational wealth, which I wasn’t born into and so now I’ve gotta think outside the box."

Comparison is the thief of joy. There will always be people richer, better advantaged than you. If you look at other people you lose sight of your own track. At 21 a lot of people have 0 income, hell even at 40+ some people do. Anything worth having takes time and effort. I like your positivity though, your “disadvantage” can be your fuel source if you harness it correctly. Adversity builds determination. Daddy’s money is a crutch for a lot of people, and trust me anyone who really wants to build a business has to put in the hours and tears regardless of how much $ is in the bank.

My suggestion is to focus on your unique individual worth. Just diving into drop shipping, selling courses or whatever is cool but what’s your unique edge in that? The best way to make money is to start with building your own personal value. Learn skills, languages, soft skills like persuasion and empathy. Study like a sponge, learn to learn, get comfortable with adversity.
As far as “What to do” keep in mind that everything takes time so choose wisely. Picking something you’re not suited for and gonna end up hating is a waste of time Your best bet is to do stuff you love. So if you love software/web design lean into a business model with that, but keep your options open and see what clicks.

Here. It sucks. I like to hire people for real estate flips because it’s the norm and but fucking having a bitch of a time doing it with my video hustle… So much fucking douchebaggery in the video world just like the art scene people wanna fucking peacock how great they are not just make videos/art

21 Years old and feel like a loser? Seriously? You realize how many 21 year olds are barely scraping by and you’ve got a successful business?

Go to therapy. Stop worrying about your business for a while. Take a vacation. I think you need to unplug and recharge.

Interesting I’ll check that out

Which traditional field? I’m curious, care to elaborate?

I don’t think it’s strange. Human nature is wired to avoid risk taking (body wants to stay alive, not take risks) and some people are more wired for risk than others. More fear requires more courage, so congrats on the first step

…

I still remember the aftermath of the 1st day of letting everyone go… i was sitting alone in the office and going “what the f have i done”, i sold all the items / furnitures and prepare to move to a newer place. Insane heavy loans breathing down my neck, and I just decided I had enough of a toxic environment, and decided to make a change and take responsibility for my mistakes.

Damn that took guts! Congrats glad it worked out well for you

You’re inviting a whole “butterfly effect / stream of time” debate that for argument’s sake your actions don’t ripple the fabric of time and change the future.

I would not try to create a new software company and compete against the giants as that even with the “biff from B2TF” god-knowledge would not save you from the day to day grind of having to run a company which requires massive time $ and energy commitment.

I would exploit the hell out of early technologies at their peak profit-value ratio. Reverse engineer the Gary Vee school of thought on “attention economy” and put $ into the platforms early when the value/eyeballs ratio is good and then transition to every platform.

Outside of exploiting knowledge of the future it would make sense to take that money and invest in the growing trends. If I could earn enough money I would try to do venture capital angel funds for ideas that were profitable longterm.

That said I fear that all of my decisions would alter the fabric of spacetime and start ww3. So in reality I would dump it all into stock and live quietly in the woods.

Well there’s something to be said for quality of reach vs. quantity of reach. Maybe collective attention span can’t even tolerate a short newsletter. I bet you reach different types of audiences, neither approach is right or wrong.

Seems more people listen to audio books than read. Reading for me is active engagement, vs. audio is default passive. I seem to have better memory recall of what’s read because it forms images in my mind, vs. listening which is somebody else’s voice in your head. I remember a lot of what I’ve heard as well (assuming I’m actually paying attention, if not it’s like 0% retention unlike reading there’s always some even if I’m skimming.)

Have you considered doing a podcast of your newsletter? You wouldn’t even have to voice it if you used some of the nicer text to speech platforms like elevenlabs.