I’ve been a wannabe online entrepreneur for as long as I can remember. So far, all of my projects either failed or didn’t get off the ground in the first place to where they could fail. It’s been my longtime dream to make a living online, but somehow it has never panned out for me.
This is a journal entry highlighting some (NOT ALL) of my failures.
If the descriptions of my projects and how they failed are boring to you, skip to section V where I offer some insights.
Photo source: pixabay.com
I.
It all started a few years ago (2007-ish) I got very knowledgeable in SEO while working at an SEO firm in Denver as a keyword researcher and article writer. I decided to apply all my newfound knowledge to an e-book and sell it online. By some luck, I got a response by online SEO legend “Grizzly Brears”, who had an insanely popular SEO blog at the time. He was on the first page of Google for the coveted keyword “SEO” and his blog had several hundred thousand visitors per month. He loved my book and agreed to become an affiliate and sell it on his blog. Life was good for a while; I was making around $4,000 per month just from the sales generated from Grizzly’s blog. Soon enough though, his blog got de-indexed after one of Google’s infamous algorithm updates. My own blogs fell right along with Grizzly’s after that update and all my e-book sales came to an abrupt halt. Google obviously didn’t like our SEO strategies. Fail!
II.
I’m quite the introvert and have suffered greatly at every job interview I’ve ever done. At the time, I was an Apple Certified Technician at an authorized retailer (not an Apple Store.) I tried my hand at creating an iPhone app that helped train people for job interviews. This was actually a project I completed and got into the App Store, but I failed miserably at the marketing part. I suppose I didn’t realize how many other apps were in the marketplace. None of them were quite like mine, but that didn’t save it from drowning in the search results. Not enough people downloaded the app and soon it became incompatible with the latest version of iOS. Then I was too slow at releasing a new compatible version. Another fail!
Photo source: pixabay.com
III.
I also tried my hand at product development creating an iPhone case that used a shock-proof material that is also used in NFL and NHL protective gear. I hired some sketchy guy named Zed to work up a CAD design and 3D printed prototype for $500. $500 was much cheaper than the $10,000+ I was quoted from legitimate prototype companies.
The plan was to launch a Kickstarter campaign to help me raise the $50,000 or so I’d need to produce my first batch of iPhone cases. Zed promised he’d have the prototype mailed out to me within a month.
I received it many months later (maybe 7?) and only after I hounded him every day about its progress. When I opened the package and removed the prototype from the bubble wrap, it broke into 2 pieces. I glued it back together and launched my Kickstarter campaign anyway. I hired a PR firm to help me out thinking that I’d leave the marketing to the professionals this time. My campaign made $25 and that was only because of a pledge from one of my friends. Yet another fail!
IV.
Next, I decided I needed a project that didn’t require any upfront investment and that wasn’t a physical product that would cost thousands of dollars to send to market. At the time, I was working in the IT department at an interpreting and translation agency and was learning their industry in depth. I decided customized scheduling software would be a clever niche software product to create, but since I wasn’t quite smart enough to pull it off completely on my own, I put up an ad for a CTO co-founder who would be willing to take equity as payment. Eventually, someone very qualified for the job responded to my ad and he seemed like a perfect fit. He immediately started working on the software after I explained the business logic and some other details to him. After a couple of months, he slowed down on his progress and came to a complete stop about a month later. He made some excuses about how he was busy and couldn’t complete the project. I couldn’t find another co-founder willing to accept equity. If at first you don’t succeed, fail, fail, fail again!
Glitch Girl, Photo source: pixabay.com
V.
Maybe I was young and naïve, but I never prepared for failure during any of my projects – and that, of course, was my downfall. You see, I wasn’t chasing a dream just for the money like most people; I chased a dream because I felt I could change the world with whatever product I was creating.
I’ve never been intrinsically motivated by money, so it can be a tricky endeavor motivating someone like me. I’m not the ideal employee and don’t respond well to financially-related bribes and goals. I get reprimanded quite frequently for making decisions that make sense morally rather than financially. Something inside me protests against the injustices of conventional employment and the exploitation of the common person by greedy businesses. Something inside me sees the immorality of wage slavery; I cry on the inside every time I go to work.
I could barely function for quite some time after the fact. To be honest, it has taken me a long time to start thinking straight again after all those failures, and some days I still don’t feel like a fully functional person. It took 4 embarrassing failures for me to finally hang my head in defeat, but that feeling of defeat has been longstanding, a feeling I can’t seem to shake.
Photo source: pixabay.com
I have lost the will to create for a very long time now and have become anxious and depressed. I have lived in a constant state of despair because I don’t know how to identify with anything else other than my projects. I became one with my projects. If I don’t have my projects, who am I? Obviously I skipped a lot of details in my descriptions above for the sake of brevity, but trust me, I tried my hardest to make every single project succeed.
I have taken my failures personally, regardless of whether it makes sense to have done so or not. It is what it is.
I feel useless. Not true, you're thinking, but really, tell me how I've been useful?
How many times can one person get knocked down and get back up before they simply can’t do it anymore?
I want to start another project, but I just can’t find the strength to risk another failure. Is it pride or...?
Failures are a part of life and I realize that. It's just that I seem to attract failure more than others.
Acknowledging and expressing these feelings in writing is a step in the right direction I suppose. This is actually the first time I've ever done so without judging myself or giving myself an obnoxious dose of unwarranted positivity.