Having a diploma in Graphic Design, then having had almost a decade worth of experience working with social media and branding, I assumed I had all it took to run the show on my own. Keyword: assumed.
When I decided to take the leap and do something for myself by myself, rather than working for another person’s company, I dove straight in. I got inspired for a brand idea one night and quickly drafted up a name, designed a logo, created a website and opened an Instagram profile. I filled the website with lots of blog posts and when I felt ready, I launched it all.
1.5 years later, I was barely at 150 followers on Instagram, and I was rarely putting up content on the website anymore. It wasn’t where I expected it to be after 18 months and it was demoralizing. I felt stuck, I felt like I had many ideas and potential but I just wasn’t doing it right. Scrolling down my IG grid made me squirm because I didn’t like what I saw – little to no engagement, inconsistent brand identity and lack of content. Ironically, I knew what was wrong and what it should be but I somehow had already seen it as a failure and lost all motivation to continue it.
Until one day, listening to a podcast (can’t remember which now), I realised where I had gone wrong. It was at the very start. And from there, I kept uncovering more and more mistakes.
I Can’t Really Do It On My Own
One of the first things I learnt was that I needed help. Starting from zero, from the very bottom, is difficult. I knew I wasn’t a popular influencer with a large following (at least not yet) who can get a thousand new followers overnight so I was literally starting with nothing. Well, actually, I was starting with exactly 166 followers.
I chanced upon an advertisement on Facebook one day about a Mom who had successfully started and ran “multiple 5-figure businesses from home” and was holding training programmes for other Moms who wanted to do the same. Um, hello? That’s me! Right when I had admitted that I needed help from an expert, life handed me one. I registered for one of her free webinars to get to know her better and soon after, I signed up for her mentorship programme.
I Was Thinking Too Much Of Me
This, apparently, was proven in many aspects of what I had built. For example, the name I chose (4thirty) was deeply meaningful and special to me, but it meant nothing to my audience. And if there’s no connection, there’s no retainability (i.e. if it’s not something people can relate to, it’s likely they will forget about it).
The same was for the entire basis of my brand idea: I wanted to be successful and make money by blogging about my journey in motherhood. Yes, that’s what I wanted. But does anybody else want that? Who wants to read about me? Who am I?
I had to change my perspective and instead of just banking on doing what I like to do, I had to ask myself: what do people need?
I Was Afraid To Be Shameless
You see, fear of the unknown is real. The anxiety that I would get thinking about trying new things is real. You have no idea how many days I would put launching something off just because I was afraid. No other reason!
What was I afraid of? Failure. Looking like an idiot. Rejection. Ridicule. Embarrassment. I would be afraid of uploading that post on Instagram and having it still show 0 likes after 4 hours. I would be afraid of trying to sell something only to have people say “Would anyone really buy that?”
This was probably the hardest realisation that I had to overcome. And it’s still a WIP – I still feel that anxiety every now and then but it helps to remind myself that as cliché as it sounds: if you don’t try, you’ll never know. I also tell myself that if I continue to let this fear get in my way, then I’d always just be sitting on the benches watching everyone else succeed while I stay stagnant.
My Hobby Might Not Always Be The Best Business Idea
During the programme I learnt that while I love blogging, it’s not going to bring in the millions for me at the rate that I was imagining it to. One of the keys to success is providing a solution to a real problem so I was made to ask myself:
Who Do I Want To Serve? (The Moms)
What Do People Like About Me/My Type Of Content? (Apparently, the food/meal posts)
What Do I Like To Do? (Write)
Putting all these together, along with a lot of ground research, was how I came to the idea of the Mama’s Everyday Meals eBook. It’s not blogging, but I still do get to write. Except now, I’m solving a problem that my audience faces.
I Kept Treating It Like A Hobby
Knowing the difference between a hobby and a business idea is one thing, behaving differently towards them is another. Once I knew what I was going to do, I was determined to put in the effort, commitment and seriousness I would in an actual job.
Working for yourself is both easy and difficult. Easy: You can go at your own pace. Difficult: You can go at your own pace.
Because I never really saw 4thirty as a real money-making business (apart from the fact that I wasn’t creating anything to sell in the first place), I only worked on it when I wanted to. And because there was no consistent effort, the motivation died early.
This time round, I’m prepared to treat it like a real job. Yes, I may only have couple of hours to spare these days, but I will make sure that every single day I do something for EM.CO even if it’s just going on Instagram and liking other people’s posts.
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I still have no idea if everydaymama.co will ever succeed. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. Maybe I’d end up rebranding and starting all over again 1.5 years down the road but even if I do, I’d be doing it with a lot more lessons learnt and hopefully do it better.
Throughout it all, my main mission still stands: I want to create a safe space, a home, a family, a community of Mamas where we can support each other, help each other, be there for one another, share with each other and basically be each others’ own hype gang because Motherhood is one heck of a journey and it’s scary to go at it alone.
Love,
A
Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash