🧠 Mind Over Matter: How to Survive the Entrepreneurship Rollercoaster

Hey there, 

Welcome back to the 43rd edition of Brandish, 

Your guide to crafting an iconic brand. 

Today’s newsletter is a little bit of a soft spot for entrepreneurs,

Especially for first time founders. 

Building any brand comes packed with its own trials, 

But the first one?

You will carry the lessons learned from those challenges for the rest of your life. 

So without further ado, 

Kick back, 

Grab your Brez, 

And let’s get into it. 

I like rollercoasters, but this one sucked

Obvi has been dominating this year - especially in Q1. 

But…

That was not the case at ALL for 2023. 

Last year was easily the toughest year that the 3 of us have had since we launched Obvi in 2019 - we were trying to juggle a million things at once, 

Navigating the post-IOS world, 

Our nationwide launch into Walmart, 

And so much more that I’d honestly rather not get into (or this newsletter would be 10,000 words long).

Our numbers were constantly up and down the entire year, 

And that inevitably causes a roller coaster of emotions, frustrations, and new problems to solve. 

When you’re in the thick of it like we were, it’s tough to fight the constant stream of negative thoughts that enter your head. 

Is the business at risk? 

Am I qualified for this? 

Is this going to last forever?

And when you’re a first time founder, those thoughts are multiplied by 100.

Out of the frying pan…

… And into the fire. 

Fast forward to Q1 of this year. 

The difference in the brand was almost night and day - we’d struggled all year long to suddenly have the biggest quarter of our careers.

And don't get me wrong - this was absolutely incredible. 

But when you go from a deep low to an extreme high in an instant, the thrill of the win is pretty short lived. 

Before you know it, you’re right back to: 

• Do we deserve this?

• Was it just luck?

• Can we keep this up?

Listen, 

I’m not trying to throw a pity party here. 

What I’m trying to explain is that there is not a single entrepreneur on the planet who won’t go through this rollercoaster of emotions and fight imposter syndrome. 

It’s constant highs and lows, and sometimes the lows last a hell of a lot longer than you want it to. 

And most of it is completely out of your control - macroeconomics, IOS updates, shifts in the company, etc. 

When you’re a first time founder, ALL of this is brand new to you. 

So when you do come out the other side - you’re likely not prepared for the shockwave that follows. 

And this might make running a business sound kind of depressing. It’s not. 

It’s simply a neverending game of mental chess, and you become more prepared and stack more strategies to stay in the game as you progress throughout your career. 

There’s a quote that I live and breathe by, 

“I will never go back to the hell that I came from.”

The first time you go through this will arguably be the worst. 

It’s inevitable. 

BUT the lessons you’ll gain will help you to weather each new storm that comes your way. 

‘Manifesting greatness’ is for suckers

In the early days, I would spend a little too much time manifesting what my life would look like years from now when we actually hit all the goals that we wanted to. 

What I didn’t realize at the time, was that doing so only made this entire experience so much harder. 

I had romanticized every aspect of our journey instead of focusing on the goals that I could hit daily. 

So when we went through that struggle, I was blindsided. 

‘Manifesting greatness’ is a pipe dream. 

Shoot for the moon, set insane goals, but keep your head down and focus on what you can do TODAY to inch yourself closer. 

Do that, and it’ll eventually accumulate to exactly what you want in the long run. 

Wrapping Up

Okay, this newsletter was a bit more serious than the usual edition of Brandish. 

Sorry. 

I wasn’t actually planning on talking about this until a recent event I attended with Ron & Ash where I got to speak with a ton of founders - a lot of whom had started during COVID. 

I learned there that what we went through is a universal experience to anyone that starts their own brand, and I realized that talking to you about this is crucial.

If you can learn about this now, you can ensure that you’re as prepared as possible for when it eventually comes. 

Because if you are…

Then you’ll have the tools you need to weather the storm, fight the imposter syndrome, and come out the other side in a better spot than we did. 

But until then, 

Set the most insane goals possible, and get to work on inching that needle forward. 

Until next time, 

Ankit