7 Lessons I Took From Trying to Make My Own Company.

Making your dream come true takes a lot of effort and success isn’t guaranteed.

Because you don’t know me and neither do I know you, I find it crucial to introduce myself. It is always better to know something about the person who has written an article. It is better for you to know about his background, so you can better evaluate what is written.

I was born in Greece but from the age of one until five, I was living in Germany, in two cities. Then I was back in Greece where I grew up, went to school, the university, went to work, and am still living there. I mention that because having memories and images from two different cultures makes your mind more open.

I study automation engineering with a specialization in robotics. I loved what I have studied, even if I had more expectations from the university. My favorite classes were programming, robotics, and microcontrollers. I was fascinated with a new manufacturer of microcontrollers.

Atmel is the name of the company and it produces AVR microcontrollers with RISC architecture. Compared with the PIC microcontrollers that were taught in the university, in my humble opinion, they were and are supreme.

So, I had my eyes on this company. I was trying to build some automation systems, but I almost failed on any project. It is so f*cking hard to program in Assembly language, especially if you are self-taught.

Everything changed when a company had implemented these microcontrollers in a development board that was connected with software and you could program in high languages. The company’s name is Arduino.

Fast forward to 2016. Having a lot of failures in my life regarding jobs and relations with women, realizing that I couldn’t collaborate with others in a company that I didn’t own, the bulb in my mind lit up.

Time to do the big step. Time to be the founder of my own company. A company about what? A company that will develop automation systems, and products that implement microcontrollers.

Easy to say, hard to do!

I didn’t have money kept for a bad situation or for making investments. It isn’t the case that I haven’t thought about it. It is that Life has its own way to make me struggle and suffer. When you can’t compromise, that is what happens to you. You struggle for money!

The million-dollar question is: “What now? How do you accomplish your goal without having fuels, money?”

Start with what you have! What do I have? Knowledge and willingness to make my dream true. I also had some boards and a laptop. I had my home for the office. I had a lot of smaller projects and a lot of experience. I believed that that’s enough.

My plan was simple. Working as a freelancer when I could or in other jobs as a constructor worker in the real estate, or as a driver to make your livings and all of your free time focus on building your start-up.

Most of the time, achieving your goal is harder as you think.

Learn more, invest more, change your life. God had other plans for me.

Somedays, I had no job to do for others. There were days in a row I was closed in my office-house, spending 8 to 12 hours to make my projects functional. I was sitting in front of the laptop and the development board without eating. My best friends were coffee and cigarettes.

People, my few friends, and the family were calling me on the phone, and I was cursing, because my concentration was disrupted. When you debug a program to find why it doesn’t work the way it should, you need to stay focused. You need silence.

Why didn’t I shut down the phone? Because I was waiting for somebody to call me for work. I needed the money to survive and go on with my dream.

I endured this life for about a year. What did I accomplish? I have made four projects.

An automation board for controlling a petroleum generator. That would be useful for houses generating electricity through photovoltaic panels. A system to retain the batteries in good conditions.

A gadget that gives you the ability to control an Electrical outlet from anywhere in the world. That was accomplished with the use of GSM (Global System for Mobile communications). You only need to send an SMS to the SIM number of the gadget. Uses are endless.

A weight that can send you the weight, temperature, and humidity at any given moment. Useful for beekeepers. (not 100% working)

A multi-functional gadget so that you can measure temperature, voltage, speed of air, humidity, weight, lumens, Atmospheric pressure, and many more. (need still work but a lot of things are done)

What was the cost for me?

I have burned my mind. My mental health wasn’t good. The few times I was going out to have fun, I couldn’t find the purpose. My body was there but my mind was still struggling to solve the bugs in the program. It was like I were two personalities.

One voice was saying to me you must, you need to take a break, to join with people. The other one was blaming me that I quit, that I haven’t accomplished my goal. The projects weren’t ready, either my company, and these two things were equal to freedom and independence in my mind.

You need to have balance in your life to go far.

The climax came one day when I realized that I had spent about a year trying so hard and I had zero income. This day, I or maybe better my mind, made the most unbelievable thing. It went on strike. It refused to work for my dream. To make a company.

Maybe it was protecting me.

The days after the strike began, I was trying to find why it was happening and what I could do about it. I find out that in my subconscious I knew that even if I had all the work done, it would take a lot more. I needed money to produce these projects-products on a massive scale, I needed a web site, I needed a lawyer, I needed to promote and advertise, I needed……

I needed time to live and reevaluate my plan. I needed more money, not only to sustain my existence but more to be able to invest in.

Never quit. Always reevaluate your plan and adjust properly.

If my mind was my enemy, I was thinking about how to defeat it. If I found other things to do for making some more money maybe it would surrender. Maybe it would work for me again.

Since then, I have participated in many different things. One of them is cryptocurrencies. I still haven’t made enough money from this activity. But I will. Why? Because I have put some money into good coins. (the evidence is proving it)

Busy on cryptos I fall into Medium. Exploring Medium, I read articles where people were claiming that they did $3000 from a single article or $25000 in a month. Hey, if they can do it I can too.

Let me say it again. Easy to say, hard to do.

What is my current situation? As you can see, I write articles on Medium. I also still work as a driver, constructor worker, and in any other job I can find.

Did I accomplish my dream of making my own company? Not yet.

Will I quit? Hell no!

Is my mental health better? Yes, but sometimes I feel like Russel Crowe in the movie “A Beautiful Mind” where he impersonated John Nash, a brilliant but asocial mathematician who sees some imaginary people.

No matter what day it is, it always crosses my mind that I didn’t achieve my goal. Every single day. This voice will never stop speaking to me until I succeed as the imaginary people from the movie I mentioned before.

Lessons I took

• Most of the time, achieving your goal is harder as you think.
• You can have the knowledge, passion, and willingness to do something but when it comes to business you almost always need some money. A lot of money.
• It is better to try and fail despite not trying and regret it.
• Don’t wait for others to help you, they have their own struggles.
• You need to have balance in your life to go far.
• Never quit. Always reevaluate your plan and adjust properly.
• Collaborating with like-minded people to make a start-up will make your life better and easier, but they are also so hard to find. (still looking to find them)

Feel free to comment, give a piece of advice, agree or disagree with me, say your opinion. Any feedback is precious as gold.

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