The Reality of Starting a Business from Zero

Aspiring entrepreneurs spend years thinking about ideas. Maybe even a dozen ideas that could work.

But they never take the leap.

Or worse maybe they did take the leap, but only in their mind.

They convince themselves they’re building something, but in reality, they haven’t done anything useful yet.

They say things like:

Maybe you’ve been saying that for months or years.

It feels better to say you’re working on it than to admit you don’t know what you’re doing, so you’ve done nothing at all.

If that’s you, let me promise you something:

Staying at zero forever telling yourself you’re almost ready but never taking real action is torture.

If you aren’t going to do it, stop pretending. There is no shame in deciding entrepreneurship isn’t for you.

But if this is for you, if you have the grit to deal with the insane work it takes to succeed, you have to get comfortable with being ignorant and wrong.

Most new entrepreneurs think successful people have it all figured out.

They don’t.

Nobody knows what they’re doing at everything they do.

Nobody is actually doing everything they say they are doing.

If you want to succeed, you have to be okay with being wrong.

You have to be willing to ask for help, admit you don’t know, and learn as you go.

I had to learn this the hard way.

Saying “I don’t know” when you should know feels awful.

But pretending you do know when you don’t? That makes you a fraud.

And it will kill every chance you have at success.

Last week, I hired a commercial leasing agent to help with my property lease renewal.

The contract needed updates, but I didn’t fully understand the financial and legal details.

I could have ignored that and signed the lease anyway.

Instead, I admitted I didn’t know what I was doing and asked for help.

That decision saved me tens of thousands of dollars.

The old contract was so poorly written that if I had re-signed it as is:

The first time I signed a commercial lease, I was unwilling to admit that half my net worth was tied up in something I didn’t understand. I refused to ask for help.

That mistake nearly cost me $100,000.

The most important lesson I’ve learned over and over again:

Always be willing to admit what you don’t know. If it’s important, learn it.

Last week, I shared the software stack I use when starting a new business.

That covered the basics, but a friend recently asked me for a clear step-by-step plan.

So, I wrote up a Starting from Scratch document to help with the first steps of business formation.

This is just the foundation.

I also put together a detailed PDF covering the first seven steps I would take when launching a new business.

It’s specific to Alaska and not legal, financial, or tax advice—just what I would personally do.

You can download it here:

Starting Your Business From Scratch

If you are stuck at zero, you have two choices:

Pretending you know everything will make you a fraud.

Admitting you don’t know and learning as you go will make you successful.

The choice is yours.