Last week I took a detour and talked about some emails of when I started my business. To catch up you can go check it out here, but as promised we’ll move forward with the story this week.
So here I am, a 25 year old kid with a desk in his parents’ house and bunch of accounting books on a book-shelf. I remember asking myself, what the heck do I do now? Do I read all the books again? Do I make sure the desk is extra clean? What’s the password to my parent’s Wi-Fi, again?
I actually did start to read 2 books at the time. My first two blog posts were on these books and I will put the links below. These books helped guide me on my journey and regardless of where you are at, these are worth a read.
https://thequantifygroup.com/must-read-books-for-entrepreneurs-part-1
https://thequantifygroup.com/must-read-books-for-entrepreneurs-part-2
Anyways, I knew I needed clients in order to survive so I started reaching out to family and friends. I figured a few of them might feel bad for me and give me their tax returns to do. And I was right. It was February at the time so I needed to move fast if I wanted to get any tax returns done before April. I think that first tax season I did about $1,300 in revenue. While it may not seem like much, it was an amazing feeling to leave a well-paying job, start a business from scratch and have people trust you enough to pay you. I was confident I could do the work but to have people actually pay me boosted my confidence that much more.
Before I go any further I want to give a shout-out to one of my best friends, Chris Lallier. Chris was still trying to figure out his job situation at the time I started the business and he decided to come on board to help us grow. We were both young and had no idea how to market. But we grinded it out day after day, meeting as many people as we could. If I am being honest, I am not sure I could have (or, even would have) stuck it out by myself. Having Chris there to keep up morale and move forward with me was huge. Plus, his food game is on point so while revenue was low, we still ate well. Anyways, just wanted to say thank you to him publicly because he deserves it so thank you man. Having a partner who is also a friend can make all difference.
After tax season, spring and summer were tough for me. I tried to get some bookkeeping work but tax was what I knew. I basically had to wait until next season to have another run at things. I spent all summer trying to develop referral partners, reading marketing books, sending out flyers, etc. When it comes to marketing, you name it, I’ve tried it. And while many of my efforts were a big waste of time and money, I learned so much during this season by trial and error that I would never want to unlearn.
The lessons we learn through the experience of error can either push us down or push us forward. Be willing to try anything. Put yourself out there. Have people around you who know your strengths and your weaknesses. And above all hold onto hope, because at the beginning of every day it will be your passion that functions to energize whatever you’re working to build.
I was still terribly worried about how things were going to work out at this point in my journey, but next week I will tell you how that all changed overnight.
