Entrepreneurs are the new rockstars. Sometimes, running your own company seems like the coolest job in the world. But the reality of being an entrepreneur can be very different; mainly, you just work your ass off, don’t have time to relax, don’t make any money, and you’ll deal with lots of disappointments and negative feedback.
That’s all fine because it can also be hugely rewarding. Still, it does help to find strength in stories from other entrepreneurs on how to deal with some of the negative aspects of entrepreneurship.
A few days ago I met with an inspiring entrepreneur who built and sold a mobile development company that specialized in creating products for global food retailers. He started this company 12 years ago, and explained how the first six years were an incredible tough time as nobody believed mobile development was interesting.
He went from meeting to meeting and the most heard feedback was, “Nobody is going to use Internet on a postage stamp sized screen.”
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He persisted and built his company into a worldwide player worth a few hundred millions, and then sold it.
There was one thing I picked up from our conversation that I thought was smart and inspiring. He told me that every time someone told him he would fail, he simply smiled and thought to himself, “Well, that’s one less possible competitor right there.”
I thought it was a very smart way of dealing with negative feedback and a great example of how the entrepreneurial mind works.
We don’t take no for an answer. We think there are always creative solutions to problems, and we don’t lose our motivation when we get negative feedback.
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