Startuping - Building something from scratch pt.1
This is week one of me ‘startuping’, starting my own company
My loyal readers would be missing me since this would be my first article in over 8 months. These past 8 months have been the best and most exciting time of my life period! Relocating to a new country, seeing new places & meeting great people. Not only did I learn about another culture but also I learned a lot about myself. I figured out one simple fact about myself, I am eager to build something my own.
19th November 2023, would mark the first week of me starting a company with one of my college besties. I won’t reveal what exactly we are building (it is too early!) but I want to journal my own feelings, learnings, and experiences. I hope to make this a regular thing, once per week (follow me so you don’t want to miss anything), detailing my journey.
How does it feel?
The moment you take a small step towards starting your own business, you will naturally feel good. However, it is not just sunshine and roses, there are times when it feels very scary! The emotions are definitely amplified compared with work for someone else. I have had good, great, and terrible moments throughout my short career. Getting promoted was definitely a good moment, with switching to a higher-paying job being a great moment but facing a few toxic moments, like being yelled at by my former boss, was definitely terrible. The crucial thing is that you do go through both good and bad in most things but the intensity of the emotion is timid compared to what I have been feeling for the past week.
The emotional rollercoaster brings tremendous joy even when you do something simple like seeing the UX of your website take shape, but it also brings terror! Even when the slightest thing goes wrong you will have a natural tendency to be intimidated.
At one moment you are on top of the world, the next you’re in a bottomless pit where you feel there is no escape. There is one thing I would add that working for yourself generally doesn’t feel like work, until now. It felt more natural than any job I have ever held. Someone told me that is temporary since this is novel to me right now. Maybe but still it is good to have the motivation to build and not be annoyed by the unsurmountable amount of work that has to be done.
Starting a business is like 10 unpaid internships combined!
What did I learn this week? One day I learned about double taxation treaties and another day I was watching a 3-hour lecture on elasticsearch. Then I had to code what I thought was a decent implementation. Next, I had to learn about the company constitution and different legal structures you can adopt.
There is no denying it, when you know that success and failure are solely in your hands, you are forced to grow quite quickly. There is no job role or description of what I should do. Sure I have a business partner that specializes in development but that doesn’t mean I won’t have to code anything. The same thing with him, he had to learn the basics of accounting to understand how we have to file taxes.
If you think that going on your own would mean you would have to work less, then you are deeply mistaken. Not at all, even on the first week I had to work on the weekend and even when I decided to take a break my mind was always on what I would do next.
So would I recommend it?
Overall, I think so far the experience has been positive. Especially when you are not alone and have at least one other person managing things. Many of my peers find it impossible to work hard for a 9–5. To be honest, sometimes I felt the same. When you go solo, you get an innate energy that helps you survive. So if you feel lost in your job I would definitely suggest you try it, maybe while keeping your job.
Anyway, thanks for reading. Have much work to do. See you next week!
The ‘startuping’ blog series is now available on substack! I would be slowly moving the entire series to substack as it is more appropriate for this type of content, please do subscribe!
