I'm short about taking a step outside my comfort zone and launching a new professional project. How do I feel? Excited and scared. Excited because I believe in the idea and I've been working on it for a while. It has been on the back burner for a while and it become more active in the last months. And now, a few days or weeks before launching, I get nervous and yes, slightly scared...
On one hand, I look forward to presenting this new idea to the world. I believe in it and I'm sure it could success, otherwise I would not try, but still, my head is full of what if. Let me tell more...
What if... I get harsh criticism? I mean really harsh here. Criticism can be positive, good, constructive. But criticism can also be harsh, negative, destructive, mean and the negative effects could potentially reach way beyond the project itself. What if some partners decide to stop working with me because of this new project? Is this too far fetched? Possibly but this is part of what scares me.
What if... there is no reaction? No feedback, no visits, no discussion, no users, no market... Whatever the niche, whatever the market, it is not because someone comes with a new product or service that the world stops running and that everybody just rushes to admire the new wonder. After all, there are tons of new offerings everyday and how often do I myself get out of my way to check something new? This fear is double faceted. First, what if there is no short term reaction? This would bruise my ego for sure. I don't like this, it is hard to admit but this is part of this fear and this is a honest, open blog post. The second facet is worse: what if it never flies? Every project, every endeavour needs effort and time to gain momentum and potentially reach success. But if it does not, when to pull the plug? Stop too early and possibly miss an opportunity? With exponential growth, it often feels like nothing happens until everything accelerates super quickly... Keep going for too long and ressources will be wasted and possibly exhausted. Stop and live with regrets, continue and live with remorse. It is easy to analyse and criticise a posteriori but calling the shots in the midst of action is a different thing.
Writing about those things help clearing my mind and putting words on ideas and writing them down helps bringing them out of my mind...
For me, an important part of being an entrepreneur is a strong drive to try realising new ideas. Not just to have ideas, this is just the beginning, but to realise them. Because entrepreneurship is about realisation, about putting the effort required, about building teams and creating value out of ideas.
So will I let those fears stop me? No. I will take the leap soon, because I believe in the idea and the initial realisation confirmed it works. Discussing it with people close to me also confirmed it initially. And because I'm a bit... naive?
