I've failed more times than I can count (and I'm okay with that)

Hey, I'm Sunil and I'm the Founder of Messy Founder. I've been working in tech for the past ten years. Currently I run a few businesses in tech and community spaces.

Well, it all started with me learning how to code. I was working what I felt was a dead-end job at the time (middle management in an office). I always felt like I was destined for more. Reading that back sounds cheesy. I just mean that I knew I had a lot to give and the job I was working wasn't going to meet those needs. I knew I had to give a lot of time and effort to learning how to code so I asked my boss at the time if I could adjust my hours so that I could work four days a week instead of five (while still maintaining a 40hr week). Fortunately, they agreed to it which meant that I ended up working probably the worst combo of days ever (I worked 10 hour days on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday), but it means that I had three whole days of freedom where I could focus on studying and learning how to code. I'll skip over the hardships for now but essentially I spent about one year learning how to code, taking on some client work (mostly for free at the time as a means of gaining experience and a portfolio of work), and it got me to a point where I was finally confident enough to apply for my first job as a Web Developer. I got the job (took a pay cut) but it put me on a ladder I wanted to be on. As I moved up the ladder, I started a blog called In Plain English. It became a place where I would write blog posts about the things I was learning while coding. Some of the posts I wrote went viral in the tech space (my posts were at the top of Reddit, shared in loads of newsletters, reshared thousands of times on Twitter, etc). I used that opportunity to grow In Plain English, invite more writers to contribute content. Fast forward a couple of years and I was working for a tech startup in London. At that time, a big tech company (Medium) reached out and asked to partner up with In Plain English and basically help to fund it. It got to a point where it seemed like I was going to make enough money from In Plain English to match what I was earning from my Software Developer job so I decided to go all in. I quit my job and became a solopreneur.

Not so much a misconception, but people often respond with "wow it must be so great to be your own boss" when I tell them that I work for myself. While it's something that I am happy about, it's actually a lot of hard work trying to manage yourself and others. I have to keep on top of accounting and taxes, have staff to pay, have to organise work for others, organise meetings, keep everyone motivated and inspired, firefight when something breaks. A nice thing about working for someone else is that you get to switch off when the work is done. It rarely feels like that for me. I recently went away on a long weekend for my birthday and deliberately didn't take my laptop or check my emails. I must have spent about four hours catching up on emails, admin, etc on the Monday morning that I returned...

There's a ton of things I wasn't prepared for. Nobody teaches you how to become an entrepreneur (and no, studying an MBA doesn't teach you that either). Side point: If you have an idea to start a business, that business is going to fail. Instead, you should have an idea that develops to the point where people want to pay you for it. I was wholly unprepared for learning how to go from being a sole trader to a private company. I had no idea what I was paying my accountant for. I had no idea how to do a tax return. I had no idea how to send an invoice. I had no idea that I would need to formulate a contract to send to a client to ensure that I was paid because yes, I have had a client refuse to pay for work - I'm looking at you, Medusa! There's just so much to learn and more often than not, you learn it in real-time, mistakes, warts and all.

Hard to pick just one as there really have been a ton of moments where I probably should have patted myself on the back at the time but didn't. But in thinking about it now, I can be really happy and grateful for how this journey has panned out so far. One of the first things that springs to mind would be having the privilege to be able to hire people. It's wild that something that started out as me documenting the things I was learning and morphed into a blogging platform, digital marketing services, software tools, communities, etc.

The fear of failure will always be there and you are responsible for that. You are responsible for putting that fear to the side and just doing the thing that you want to do. Nobody cares if you try something and fail. My partner recently said to me that she thinks it's amazing that I'll have ideas for things and I'll just go ahead and work on them. It wasn't always like that - heck, it took me a few attempts at learning how to code before I finally stuck with it. But after a while I realised that while I may try things and fail, not trying at all would feel a whole lot worse. So in short, if there's something you want to create for yourself, go and give it a try and see what happens. And PS. maybe don't quit your day job just yet, until you have confidence in the thing you are creating ;)

If you've found success in your given space, be that as a founder, as a freelancer, as a creator, as a builder, whatever it may be, you owe it to yourself and to others to take the time to document your journey and to help inspire others. Not everybody has the knowledge you have, but there are probably lots of people that would love to learn from you.