I’m at that place in my entrepreneurship journey where I’m getting impatient. I just want to skip to the part where I look back on my journey with ParqAvenue and think to myself "I finally made it." Will this moment ever come? And if so, when? This place is called the beginning.

The AppsWithoutCode bootcamp has officially ended--introducing the ever-present question: "Now what?" I was hoping that by the end of the bootcamp I’d have a set action plan. Do this, this, and that and then by this day I'll see xx results.

Now I realize that what I thought would be the end of a phase--testing assumptions and figuring out strategy--is just the beginning of my company’s journey. ParqAvenue's strategy can’t be conclusively solved in 6 weeks because it will be forever changing with the life of the company. And there is no perfect set of steps to take to get any guaranteed result--though many books/ podcasts/ webinars will try to convince us otherwise. Just like in all of life, each company’s life and path is different.

Here’s is what I’ve learned about entrepreneurship over the last 6 weeks:

• It feels weird to take ownership of something that doesn’t exist yet. Until I really internalize the fact that every company that exists was first created by someone.

• I am the CEO which means no one--regardless of experience--call tell me what to do or guarantee me certain results. There is no right answer. Only millions of iterations to test out.

• Doing something wrong is better than doing nothing. You can't learn from nothing.

• ALL entrepreneurs at some point suffer from a crippling lack of confidence that someone coined as Imposter Syndrome. It’s apparently a huge topic in this space.

• Keeping morale up is quite possibly the biggest factor that can make or break me on this journey. Everything is figureoutable. It’s just a matter of being willing to put in the effort and time to figure it out.

• Life hack: creating a community of solopreneurs who are going through similar emotional and financial rollercoasters as is insanely helpful. (See the screenshot of our group's brainstorming video call).

• The idea of “I finally made it” is exactly that. An idea. Many arguably successful people don’t feel like they’ve made it yet. This is a continuous journey and there’s always further to climb.

• Everyone else--aka the people who are watching me but aren’t actually in my shoes--feels extremely certain about the outcome of my company. The people who doubt me are 100% confident that I will fail. And the rest are equally confident in my (company’s) infinite success.

In summary, I gained a ton working with AppsWithoutCode--from the community to insight on resources that I didn’t know existed to developing a framework for how to think about my company and myself as an entrepreneur moving forward. In one word, that framework is “iterations.” I’ll talk more about ParqAvenue’s specific iterations in the next post....

So now, what? Now we keep going!

© taylordmills 2017