Life as a Business Owner: What if I Am a BIG FAT Failure?

Day 1:

This is probably somewhere in the 800^th day of my business if you count when we officially started back in the spring of 2008, but as far as my daily writings, this is my first. I couldn’t have started on a worst week. I have had 3 ugly cold sores for all to see, one ulcer on my tongue, and a face rash on one side of my cheek. According to my doctor, these issues have nothing to do with  being physically ill and are a direct result of stress.. I am taking his advice and trying to relax—it is difficult, as most new business owners can attest to. 

In the last 48 hours, I have gotten in two huge fights with my business partner over the phone, have vehemently threatened to leave the business behind and start life over on the East Coast, and have also been told by our first and only mentor that the feat we have taken on is probably insurmountable with no money and neither one of us having the time to do it 24/7 (since we work other jobs to make a living).

He surmised that we do not have the foggiest idea of what it takes to create, brand, sell, and make profit off of a new product that has a vast amount of competition (5,000 was the number he chose when stating about how many competitors we probably have). 

Of course, I tried to take this all in like an adult and calmly rethink our plan. I reasoned that he was of an older generation and probably not as much of a risk taker as many of my peers today are. I made myself feel better at first saying things like, “He doesn’t know what he is talking about. His own business probably stinks.” 

But, the harsh reality came about 4 hours later when I was trying to go to sleep and I had done my last e-mail check for the night. All of a sudden, I started to panic and wonder if all he said was true. Would we be able to do this with no money? Would we be able to get investors of any merit? What if we never get this product off the ground and we are in debt to this company again? What if we never get out of debt? What if I have to go back to doing a 9-5 job and succumb to a miserable existence (in my eyes)? 

What if…what if…what  if…all night long. It was a restless night to say the least.