Why do the first steps feel impossible?
Hi,
Not sure if this belongs here but I'm just looking for advice for a problem that I don't know if its just me or if this is quite a common thought. I'm a Software Engineer that specialises in retail systems end to end from tills, ERP integrations for Shopify, Woo etc and have wanted to have my own business since I was a little kid. I'm 27 now and have been in the game as an engineer and in this industry for just under 10 years and I've wanted to start my own business and have tried (multiple times). Well actually tried is a bit of a stretch. I just have this overwhelming feeling that no one will be willing to pay for my services or they'll just go to a big agency and get the work done.
My angle was I wanted to keep it as quite a small studio to keep the communication quite close with end users and this was due to almost every single agency I've personally worked with in my career has either done work to a poor standard or sit me down in a teams meeting making out that an issue is way bigger than it actually is knowing full well its about an hours worth of work and they drag it out for weeks using the "hourly credits" assigned in the contract.
I just saw it day in and day out of these companies abusing the cashflow of bigger companies hoping they wouldn't know this and D365 development agencies seemed to be the worst ones in my experience and these guys were being paid into the millions for development. Am I just being 'too nice' in this dog eat dog world or is being a wolf the only way to truly capitalise in an industry like this?
I digress, what have small business owners done to tackle the devil on the shoulder telling you that this idea you have won't work, how there are other places people can go and how that you should just give up? What pushed you to keep going even when your brain is trying to convince you otherwise?