How to Start a Business

Instability is not a punishment — it's the rules of the game

Most people think business means freedom. I talk about that myself. But the freedom is different from what you see on YouTube. Real entrepreneurial freedom looks like this: if I want, I work until five in the morning. If I want, I work seven days a week for four months straight. If I want, I risk everything I own on an idea. That's the whole freedom.

I strongly advise against getting into business if you're not ready to live in constant stress and instability. In the beginning, without support and without an experienced mentor, you will make a massive number of mistakes. That's inevitable. Your team will let you down. A client won't pay. A supplier will vanish. This isn't a force majeure — it's the rules of the game. Are you ready?

Three questions to answer honestly

Before you pick a niche, a name, or a logo — sit down and answer these. No lying to yourself.

Are you ready to live in instability for a year? Not "put up with it for a couple of months" — a real year where you don't know how much you'll earn, or whether you'll earn at all. I've seen people who were desperate to start a business and three months later went back to a job. Not because they were weak — because they couldn't handle the feeling of standing on air.

Are you ready to solve other people's problems? Business isn't primarily about your self-expression. It's about what hurts the client, and you taking that pain away. If you can't stand getting into other people's challenges — it'll be rough, because that's exactly what business is made of.

What will you do if it doesn't work out? When I wrote my first business plan, the last page was about failure. Literally: what I do if everything collapses. That's not pessimism. That's what real readiness looks like — when you know in advance that even the worst scenario won't kill you.

An investor doesn't invest in a business plan. They invest in the person — will this person make it to the finish line, or bail at the first setback? You need to look at yourself exactly the same way.

My first $200 — and four years at break-even

This isn't a motivational story. It's the answer to the question "how much money do you need to start?" Zero. You don't need money to begin. You need money to scale something that already works. The main question at the start isn't "where do I find capital?" — it's "who will pay for my solution first?"

The people who build "infrastructure" first — website, office, legal entity, logo, business cards — usually never make their first sale. All their energy goes into preparing to play instead of actually playing. The people who go out and sell straight away, through direct messages, no website, no office — they survive. Because they immediately test the only thing that matters: is anyone willing to pay?

An idea is worth nothing — here's why

Startup founders come to me and say: "I have an amazing idea, give me money. But I won't tell you the idea — you might steal it!" Seriously. People genuinely think an idea is an asset worth protecting.

In reality, an idea is worth zero. Execution has value. I've seen thousands of launches. Not one failed because of a "bad idea." They failed because of unwillingness to do the work. Because people weren't ready for the hard stretch. Because they were waiting for the idea to become "perfect" — and never started.

Business is solving a client's problem in exchange for payment. That's it. You don't need a revolution. Find the pain and relieve it — with a product, a service, or simply yourself as a specialist.

Four formulas that every business on earth fits into

If your idea doesn't fit one of these four models — it doesn't exist:

1. Let someone not do something — a washing machine instead of hand-washing.
2. Do the same thing, but better — an electric toothbrush instead of a manual one.
3. Do the same thing, but cheaper — a budget alternative with the same result.
4. Do the same thing, but faster — one-hour delivery instead of next day.

Beyond that, there's nothing else. You either improve, speed up, cheapen, or help people skip it altogether. Once you can slot your solution into at least one of these models — you can sell it.

How to test a niche in one week

You don't need a year of research and you don't need savings. You need one week and the willingness to act.

The first money — that's a feeling of its own

I don't want to end on statistics and fear. I want you to understand what this is all for.

The first money in business is something else entirely. The moment you realize you can earn your regular salary in a month — but now you also feel strength and freedom alongside it. The strength of knowing you can do it again whenever you choose. The freedom of deciding what, how, and when.

No salary gives you that feeling. You didn't just earn money. You proved to yourself that you can create it from nothing — from your skill, your time, your solution to someone else's problem. Something shifts inside you permanently.

Why 80% quit — and how not to be one of them

The numbers are tough: around 80% of new businesses close in the first year. People don't quit because the market is bad. They quit because they can't hold up internally — the constant state of instability, uncertainty, and stress.

There was a period when I started devaluing my own abilities — it felt like I couldn't do anything, that it was all pointless. That wasn't a money crisis — it was an energy and belief crisis. And here's what I figured out: those valleys come for everyone who's building something. The question isn't whether they'll come, but what you do when they arrive.

Don't stay alone. Once a partner asked me on a call: "What needs to happen for you to feel excited again?" That one honest question from someone beside me pulled me back out. On your own, you spin inside your head and drown. Around people who've been through the same thing — you find solid ground.

Return to the why. Not to the numbers on a report, but to the question: why did I start this in the first place? When there's a bigger idea behind the business — you can ride out any valley. When the business is only for money — at the first serious dip, your hands drop.

Remember: a dip is not failure. The people who make it to results differ from the ones who quit in exactly one way: they didn't take the valley as the end.