Defne YucesoyEveryone around me talks about starting a business like it’s a linear process where there’s nothing that goes wrong. You have an idea, you build it, you show it to the world and it either works or it doesn’t. That’s not what happened to me.
At 16, I didn’t start with a well thought business plan. I started with a thought that came to me at 2AM. “What if I can build something that people would actually use?” I asked. This question was not for school or wasn’t theoretical but it was something real and genuine.
So there was only one thing left to do. I tried. It didn’t look like a well planned startup. It looked more like unnecessary notes scattered on my phone and ideas that felt like they were a work of art at 2 in the morning that made no sense when I woke up the next day. It was a constant cycle of excitement that was followed by doubt.
I worked on the concept of a trend based app, that showed every age group what the new “trend” was for the week. It was a concept that could actually track what people were interested in. It could vary from places to products to aesthetics. I honestly thought the idea was solid, and i still do. However, building that idea piece by piece is much more different than having an idea.
That is when the realization kicked in. The realization that ideas are easy to romanticize but execution is much more uncomfortable, but not impossible.
There’s this version of entrepreneurship that is presented online : confident, fast results, successful… What I experienced was much more slower and much more uncertain. I almost never knew what the next step I was going to take would lead me to. I wasn’t always at my peak and motivated. Sometimes I didn’t even want to continue because I didn’t know how ı could possibly make it better.
This leads us to the second thing that this attempt thought me, that uncertainty isn’t failure , it’s the entire process.
At some point I also started selling clothing through resale platforms to give fashion a second life. It wasn’t a traditional “startup” but it taught me things that the app on itself couldn’t have thought me. It showed me the way consumers behave. It showed me what they click on , what makes them hesitate to buy something and what makes something feel worth buying. It taught me to sell the experience.
It made me realize that businesses isn’t just about buying or selling stuff but it is also about understanding people. People are unpredictable. Items that would make me say “Oh, this is an easy sell!” would never sell. Others I didn’t list sold within hours. It made me understand that business is not just strategy but it is also about perception.
I did build something else than a business. I built a new way of thinking. I stopped waiting for the right time and to feel ready. I stopped believing that clarity comes before action. If anything I understood that clarity comes because you start and continue.
Yes, trying to build something at 16 didn’t make me a certified entrepreneur. However, it made me more aware, more observant and more willing. ıt helped me take my own ideas more seriously.
Perhaps this is the point.
The most important thing that happened wasn’t the business itself , it was realizing that I don’t just want to think about ideas at 2 in the morning. I want to do something with them
Image Credits:
Mitov, Stoyan. “Pros and Cons | Nurturing a Culture of Entrepreneurship Inside Your Company.” Dreamix, 14 July 2015, https://dreamix.eu/insights/pros-and-consnurturing-a-culture-of-entrepreneurship-inside-your-company/.
