If you could look into a crystal ball and see your future — would you do it? Do you think you would find yourself where you wanted to be?
As tempting as it might be to look into that crystal ball, I wouldn't recommend it. If a crystal ball would have shown me three years ago that it would take me three years to get my business idea into an actual business, I don't know if I would have started it. If it had shown me that I would be working day and night without receiving one dime in compensation over that time, I might not have been able to stick it out.
Flashback to the Spring of 2004: My best friend and I were in college and wanted to move off campus. We and another friend spent weeks trying to find a place to live. We drove around in search of "For Rent" signs, looked at ads in the newspapers, and went to see places that were one hundred times worse than advertised. Finally, we were thrilled to find a suitable three-bedroom — that is, until our third roommate let us know that he wouldn't be attending school the following year.
Now, with two of us not being able to afford the rent, we went on a mad rush to find a replacement roommate — with no success. So, we had to do another apartment hunt, which took us another month. When we finally found one, we vowed we would never go through the process again.
We also discovered that we weren't the only ones facing this problem. We wished there was a website that dealt specifically with student housing, student roommates, and student sublets. Instead of waiting for someone else to start one, we decided that we would. Thus, we came up with the idea for placefinder.com, a website just for off-campus student housing needs.
We uncovered a huge need and a great solution, so we thought the money would just come rolling in, right? Wrong. There was so much we didn't know about business, about creating a solid revenue model and about building a website. We must have hit every single roadblock imaginable. We knew what we wanted the website to do, but we didn't know how we were going to do it. We knew it could make money but not exactly sure what was most scaleable. We just didn't know enough. We thought if we built it, the customers would just come and everything would be dreams of sugar plums and dew drops.
We launched a website in 2005 that should not have been launched at all. There were problems with both its functioning and look; it didn't work properly and there were many complaints. Therefore, we decided to take the site down, and we spent the next two years fixing it and refining our business model, keeping our eyes on the ultimate prize. While other students went out to parties on weekends, we were in our apartment working on the website. It came to a point where I personally felt my business was trying to develop a business!
There were times when I felt like quitting. I was supposed to be this big-shot businessman, but my friends were making more money working part-time in the dining hall! Some people told me I was a joke. But it didn't matter what others thought, what was important was my vision of myself.
There is a story of a tour guide who would lead groups of hikers on a grueling trip to the peak of a very tall mountain. The guide always started at three in the morning, in time to catch the sunrise at the top — or so the guide told the hikers. The real reason was that, if the tour began when it was already light out, he knew that many of the hikers would see how far they had to go and never get started.
I'm happy to report that the sun is starting to rise for placefinder.com. It has been a great success in our test market, we are in our expansion phase, have figured out our business model and we were recently featured in USA Today and 2 Books on young leaders. Now, I would not trade the last three years of work for anything — not only for the business success, but for what the experience has done for me on a deeper, personal level. I was able to see how I would respond to demanding circumstances and still push through. Gaining that confidence and knowledge of myself was worth every second of the trip.
