Launching Your Business: A Rant From an Entrepreneur

If anyone ever tells you that running a business is easy, they’re either doing something very right, or maybe they’re just a tad crazy. Living life as an entrepreneur is similar to a hanging pendulum — it’s a constant swing, back and forth, between the ups and downs. You can start your morning with big wins and end the evening having to make uncomfortable decisions that affect the health of your company. Or, you can receive a commitment from the client that’s going to change the future of your business, just to have a major pandemic strike, thus, canceling months of hard work leading to that moment.

Whether you’re a first-time entrepreneur trying to read as much as possible to prepare for this journey or a seasoned entrepreneur who’s simply here for the ride, this concept probably resonates with you.

Starting a company is fun. It’s exciting. It’s exhilarating to say the least.

At most times, you have minimal funds to play with, very few processes set in place, no team, and very glossed over eyes as you read through thousands of blogs and how-to guides on getting started. You’re hopeful though — which is awesome.

So you’ve got this amazing idea, or maybe a plan of action. For us at VisualFizz, it was kind of a hybrid of a mental business plan and a written one. I guess you don’t realize how many times your business plan has to and will change between initial conception and your first realized successes. Keep editing.

The story of how we launched VisualFizz, our Chicago-based digital marketing firm, is a pretty interesting one. I’ll tell it from my point of view: I worked for a series of agencies ranging from the ‘mom and pop’ style agencies with 3 employees and A LOT of hats to where, up to the 1,000+ person agencies. I’ve contracted at a number of agencies and worked in-house at a number of companies. One common factor that I found at numerous agencies that I worked for was the massive amount of overhead costs that they would incur. The fancy, expensive, top floor offices downtown, overstaffed, overpriced meetings and lack of utilization of expensive employees all felt like fundamental issues in the industry.

So… I was pretty happy at my job. And in 2016, poof, it was gone. Major cuts at the company due to the loss of a few major clients led me straight back to where I was: (f)unemployed. Did I mention that this was 3 days before closing on my first property in the city? Welp - I quickly canceled that and had a decision to make. Find a new job…. Or create a new job? Obviously I went with the riskier option.

Fast forward about 3 months. I’m sitting in a cafe in Logan Square (neighborhood of Chicago for all you non-locals) with this random person that I met on LinkedIn. I was very transparent in saying that I am looking for a co-founder for this new random agency concept that I wanted to launch. I wanted the mission to be global-worker friendly, I wanted to have clients all over the world, and I wanted to build it with minimal overhead. So, just as the conversation came to a slow down and we were packing up, we said, okay, let’s do it. Let’s try this thing out.

Awesome, so now I had a co-founder for this non-existent business. From that point, I also had to give her the ever so tiny disclaimer that I was embarking on an open-ended trip to Southeast Asia for a while (which ended up being 100 days abroad). But hey, we had a business plan, so we were set, right?

Anyway, at this point we got to work. With no budget, no clients, and a homemade (by yours truly) logo/website/business, we got started. Total budget: $50.

Within 10 days, we landed our first client. They were an international company based in Kuwait launched by two young female entrepreneurs. A hybrid concept of unique products sold via their e-commerce platform, as well as a physical presence in Kuwait. From there, VisualFizz was born. We were profitable and able to pay ourselves peanuts to keep food on the table. BUT, what was important was that we now had a client that we can use as a case study, we had a few dollars to reinvest, and we had an idea of how we can work together as a very small team.

I am sitting at home writing this, stuck inside due to COVID-19, three and a half years later. Our company has doubled in size each year, our clients now range from startups to $1 billion dollar (and more) market cap companies. We’re still a very small business and a drop in the sea when it comes to marketing. But we’re… a drop. And every drop, no matter what the size, still creates a ripple.

We took this idea and we turned it into a real business. It’s a business that supports individuals and families. It’s a business that funds swimming lessons and doctor’s bills. It’s a business that supports other businesses. We help clients go from 0 to 1, from 1 to 3, and from 100 to 1,000. And you see, that’s what keeps me, personally, going each and every day. I want to support families, individuals, dreams, goals, projects, organizations, and startups.

Beyond that, I want to support myself.

Sure, that might sound a bit greedy, but one does have to be a bit greedy. I launched the business so that I can be in charge: In charge of my schedule. In charge of my finances. In charge of my future. In charge of what will be my children’s future, for when that time comes.

This is why I became and will continue to stay an entrepreneur. And I want each member of my team to feel as though they are valued, so they can live out the same dreams the same way I want to live out mine.

So that’s the good side of entrepreneurship. It’s a $!@* ton of work. It’s emotionally draining. It’s physically exhausting. It tests your mental abilities and your patience. Just be ready for that. And like I said earlier, if you’re a seasoned pro, I am sure you still feel this way. It’s just the nature of the business. Doesn’t matter how many companies you’ve started.

Service-based companies are tough. You need to build a great foundation with your partners, as well as your prospects, as well as with your team. And you can spend A LOT of time building relationships, formulating perfect responses, sending case studies and sample work, and so much more. You can be hours away from signing the biggest deal of your life. That one deal that will change the way you run your business. That deal that will finally let you hire 2 or 4 or 10 new employees.

And at the end of the day, we live a life of variability. We live in a world of uncertainty. And though you’re halfway through that celebratory champagne, you should be ready to sip your victory flute ever-so-cautiously. Times can change. Relationships can go bust. That endless well of income can sometimes very quickly dry up. So just be ready. Don’t be irrational.

Celebrate your wins. Learn from your losses. Analyze your mistakes. Improve your processes. But just know that running a business is not a math formula. You can’t predict the future.

Beyond that, hire good people. Hire the types of people that love doing what they’re doing. Hire people who are hungry. Hire people who care about you. Hire people who have unique hobbies. Hire people that you’d invite to your own birthday party. And in return, those people will give you the best years of their lives. Relationships are everything. People don’t always realize that, but they really are a fundamental part of what business stands for. You don’t sell to a company — you sell to people. You don’t work for a company — you work for people within a company.

Get a good accountant. Get a good lawyer. Get a good writer. Get the good people. And mind you, good doesn’t always mean the most experienced person in the room. It always 100% does not mean the person who was the top of their class at some prestigious university. Honestly, it doesn’t matter.

Long story short. If you plan on being an entrepreneur, just know that the pendulum does not stop swinging. There are highs and there are lows. But, in my opinion, the highs outweigh the lows. Brush off the failures and keep moving forward. Find your successes and bring them home.

- Dan @ VisualFizz