3 false statements about being a freelancer/entrepreneur.
/“I have no competition”
This is something many people will say in a pitch, but is simply not true and tends to lead to investor uneasiness. There is always competition. Say you are in the pool business. Not only are you battling other companies that build and maintain pools, but you're battling Facebook, golf, and bad weather. Let me explain; If people are sitting inside on their computers all day, they will likely spend less time swimming. Competition is really just a constant fight for Money, Time, and Attention. When you change someones behavior, which any real product will inherently have to do, you've taken one or all of these three values away from another business, wether it's in your field or not.
“Working for yourself means you have no boss.”
In some ways you are held more accountable as a freelancer than you would in any position at an office. Your clients and market are your boss. Transparency is inevitable with any project you are a part of, so getting the details right are incredibly important. If done right, being an entrepreneur or freelancer can lead to greater flexibility in your career. But in hard times, it's easy to be so encompassed in your product that it'll likely feel like you are under tighter control by the market than any boss could be.
“I need my product to be built so that I can get customers”
The product itself is less important than validating the product's necessity. Building isn't scary, and is getting cheaper and easier than ever before. Do the hard part first and save yourself from wasted hours or money. Nothing should be built until you've taken steps to make sure there is a real value, meaning people would pay to have a problem solved for them. Then use free online tools to test this once again, and slowly grow that until you've validated enough to pay for your product's production. Find the customers, and then build around them.
