#142 About starting a business (4) (23/02/2025)

Imagine you're swimming to a beautiful island. It starts to rain, and you think, "It's okay, I'll just grit my teeth and swim a little longer." But then you find yourself getting more and more tired, your legs are starting to give out, and the rain makes the sky blurry, so you can't see how far away the island is... Would you choose to turn back or continue swimming?

If I were to summarize what entrepreneurship is, the above is a statement a senior once made to me, and it is also my own understanding. Having the most beautiful vision is like wanting to swim to a beautiful island, but after swimming for a long time, it gradually seems like the end is out of sight. The process is sometimes lonely and helpless, and many of the grievances and hardships are hard to describe, only you know them. Furthermore, bad weather might occur along the way, making it even harder to see the finish line. You start to doubt yourself, seeing that the people around you seem to be doing better than you, yet you keep swimming desperately towards a goal that's unclear. You even doubt whether the beautiful island at the end even exists. So you start to think about turning back, but when you turn around, in the hazy rain, you can't even see where you actually fell into the water. .

You remember many predecessors saying that the beautiful island exists, but at the same time you also remember that most of them couldn't swim there. The wind and rain are fierce, and you're getting more and more tired as you swim; your legs even start to cramp. Your heart is filled with complex emotions.

This is what starting a business is all about. Written on a night when I was feeling down at work.