Melissa Kwan

9 things I wish someone had told me about being an entrepreneur: 🤯 

1. Money goes FAST. 💸 
When I quit my last job, I had saved up $100K and thought it would last for 2 years. After trying a few ideas with various contractors, it was gone in 9 months. I hugely underestimated what it would take to get to revenue.

2. There's no free money.
I applied to every loan and government grant I could which was great until I had to start paying them back. The grants came with reporting requirements which were a huge pain. Luckily, I didn’t raise capital, which would have golden-handcuffed me to the venture train.

3. Deadlines are moving targets for most.
The fact that people will tell you they’ll deliver something on Friday and then not do it without saying anything was a shocking revelation. Knowing this would have helped me set more realistic timelines and budgets.

4. Not everyone has to get what I'm doing.
I used to pitch my idea to everyone I met. This often came off as desperate and annoying, making people less likely to engage with me.

5. Comparison is truly the thief of joy.
When I didn’t have money, all I wished for was a normal life like other people my age. Like eating out at a restaurant or taking time off without feeling guilty. When I got there, I wanted my own apartment. When I got there, I wanted to buy a home. When I got there, I wanted more money, more glory. It never ends until you stop trying to keep up with the Joneses.

6. Energy vampires are everywhere.
People used to tell me that my idea was never going to work and that I should come work for them when I was “done trying”. When I started seeing success, people called me lucky and then would humblebrag about their own achievements. Turns out, so few people genuinely root for you to win.

7. Success comes in all shapes and sizes
I thought I needed that unicorn exit to be successful but it became obvious that I didn’t have the stamina to get there. I saw founders who built multiple SaaS companies, each yielding $20k/month, with more freedom and less work. That showed me that success is self-defined.

8. It doesn't have to be that hard.
Running my third startup made me realize my first two were particularly hard because they were not great businesses. Building a company is difficult, but how difficult lies in the idea.

9. The most important relationship to success is your life partner.
Your life partner can be your greatest source of joy or misery, success or failure. I've seen companies rise or fall because of the support (or lack of) from life partners. Having a supportive life partner is what kept me sane during my darkest days.

I’m not from a family of entrepreneurs so I had to learn everything from scratch. 

A lot of these things, while obvious now, took me by surprise in the first few years.

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I'm a 3x bootstrapper & share lessons from my founder journey here weekly.

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