back

by nate·6y ago·view on hn ↗
Reminded me of someone recently asking on Reddit for advice on making videos for YouTube. They had been at it for a few weeks and only had a handful of YouTube subscribers to show for it. They wanted to give up.

The thing I always remind folks of in that situation is that to succeed at many things, particularly creative things like YouTube and writing, you have to do it for intrinsic reasons. You want the writing or videos out there because somehow the act of putting them together and publishing satisfies you even if not another single person was there to see it.

I think it applies really well in entrepreneurship. It's not a strict rule obviously. There's people making stuff for other people all the time. But one of the best ways to stick through the ups and downs of entrepreneurship is to be working on something that has that intrinsic satisfaction. You're the best user. Even if no one buys the thing, at least you have a piece of kit that fixes some need you have.

1 comments
> They had been at it for a few weeks and only had a handful of YouTube subscribers to show for it. ... you have to do it for intrinsic reasons

You're at odds with the passive income crowd. lol.

FYI: an escort created a channel, put up some informative videos, then gave up. A year later she happens across her old channel, which grew to about 20,000 subscribers on autopilot, then rapidly to 100,000 after some more videos. (100,000 is the threshold of a lifestyle business if you're monetized, with 1 million being a career.)