3 *Big* Mistakes I Made As A First-Time Entrepreneur

Don’t make these mistakes if you want to protect your psyche as an early entrepreneur and avoid setting yourself back by a few months.

Exactly 12 months after quitting my job as an innovation product manager, I reflected on three *big* mistakes I made.

1. I quit my job with the goal of starting my own company.

I naively set aside a year to build my own company. It set me up for failure in my own eyes. Building a business really is hard and you can’t put a timer on it like that.

In hindsight, I actually quit my job to learn new skills, test some of my own ideas out and figure out my next step—maybe that’s a company, maybe it’s consulting or maybe it’s a career switch.

I’m still struggling to forgive myself for not meeting my original ridiculous goal.

2. I spent the first six months building my projects in the dark.

I built my first few projects in the dark, too afraid to share my progress (and failure) in public. I didn’t think anyone would be interested anyway because I hadn’t “made it” yet.

I finally gained some courage six months in and started building in public and sharing my learnings openly…