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You have the skills. You have the desire. You have the persistence, work ethic, and belief in yourself required to start your own business and become a successful freelancer.

But what you don’t have is experience running your own successful business — so why not learn from people that do?

Here’s a guest post from Ryan Robinson, an entrepreneur and marketer who teaches people how to create meaningful self-employed careers.

Here’s Ryan:

Leaving your day job and launching your own freelance business is a dream many creative professionals share.

If you’ve spent time thinking about going down this road, you have an idea of just how much effort goes into becoming a successful freelancer. There are certain things you need to do in order to prepare yourself for that jump to self-employment: create an irresistible online portfolio, fully define your service offerings, set your prices, and figure out how you’re going to bring on your first clients.

While you can (and should) start your freelance business while keeping your day job, you need to be focusing right away on delivering impactful results that are going to get you to living a life of self-employment as quickly as possible.

To help you do that, I recently interviewed 12 freelancers who make over $100,000 per year. I asked them to share with me how they got started, where (and how) they find their best freelance clients, how they’ve built a personal brand, and more. From designers, writers, marketers, business coaches, developers, SEO consultants, and PR pros, we’ve got them all.

We also compiled more advice, articles, and exclusive video content into our new step-by-step guide on how to build a successful freelance business, The Freelancer’s Roadmap.

Here’s the most common advice I got from my conversations with these entrepreneurs about how to create a successful freelance business:

• Focus on catering your services to niche markets — it will lend you more credibility in building your authority in a particular space.
• Never stop building your personal brand — there’s a compounding effect that will continue to send prospective new clients your way.
• Put time into learning how to effectively sell yourself — it does you no good if you’re the best in your space and no one knows it. Start by learning how to discover your strengths and leverage them.
• Don’t take on clients that you’re not sure you can truly help — falling flat on your face can (will) damage your reputation in your industry.
• The most effective client acquisition path is often referrals — they have a layer of trust built-in that goes a long way in establishing your reputation.
• Don’t quit your day job — until you’re bringing in enough steady income to sustain your lifestyle; it can be a long path to reaching $100k per year.

So with that said, here we go!

One of my favorite CreativeLive instructors, Ilise focuses on teaching creative professionals how to get better clients with bigger budgets. She mentors, coaches, and sells marketing tools for entrepreneurs through her website.

When Ilise seeks to bring on new clients for her business, she goes to her email newsletter, speaks at local events, writes and contributes to books in her space, and publishes content in destinations (like CreativeLive) where her audience spends time online.

The hardest lesson Ilise has learned on the long path to becoming a successful freelancer? “You can’t be everything to everyone. Focus is essential to success and builds your competence and self-confidence.”

Some parting advice: “Never rely on word of mouth, even if it keeps you busy. It is completely unreliable and puts you in a vulnerable position. Get into the habit of identifying and pursuing the work you want by choosing two-three marketing tools that work for you and repeating them consistently. Leave the rest alone.”

It’s been a couple of years since Preston transitioned from actively freelancing over to managing Millo.co, the premier online destination for freelancers to get tips, strategies, and advice on how to grow their businesses. Before Millo took off, he was a freelance graphic and web designer.

I asked Preston to share how he found his best freelance clients. “My best clients always came from word-of-mouth marketing. It always required much less convincing up-front and had a level of trust built-in.”

Something Preston really struggled with while freelancing was assigning more value to his work. “Learning to value your work properly leads to huge amounts of success as a freelancer because it allows you to charge more, turn down jobs you’ll end up hating, and ultimately be more satisfied with the work you do.”

In order to launch yourself into the six-figure freelancer club, Preston says, “Know your numbers. Know exactly how much you need to make each month, week, day and hour. You won’t magically reach six figures. You need a calculated plan to get there and you need to diversify your income — it’ll save you in times of economic hardship.”

Paul is another successful freelancer who’s recently branched out into other opportunities, mostly online products (like CreativeClass) and consulting for freelancers, both of which came about because he quickly recognized the importance of building a powerful personal brand for himself.

Interestingly enough, he got started as a freelancer by accident. The day he quit his agency job he started looking for other opportunities, but he received three or four calls from agency clients wanting to work with him wherever he landed next. From that moment on, he’s been over-delivering for his clients and hasn’t looked back.

In his more than 17 years of experience as a freelance designer, Paul’s learned a lot about how to find the best clients for his business.

Paul shares, “I’ve never cold-called or put my services on job boards or marketplaces. It’s been 100 percent word of mouth and referrals since I started. My focus has always been making my clients so happy and successful that they become my sales force.”

He also feels very strongly about turning down projects that aren’t a perfect fit for him. “If I don’t pay attention to the warning signs before money is involved in a project, the work ends up being stressful and turns into something I’m not stoked on doing,” he adds.

Before launching DesignCuts, Tom was a freelancing jack of many trades. He primarily offered website design and conversion services, but dabbled in brand work, photo manipulation, and print design if it provided value to clients.

The most valuable piece of advice Tom has to offer is, “Focus on referrals. They’re easier to attract than new clients and they’re meeting you with context about who you are. They often come with a glowing recommendation from someone they trust, so it makes it a lot easier to land the job, price yourself better, and focus more on the actual work.”

So, how do you go about setting yourself up to get more referrals from existing clients, friends, and professional colleagues?

“The trick to getting referrals? Over deliver. And be nice! Another piece of advice: don’t try to target everyone. I got a lot of traction from becoming well known within certain niche circles. If you try to take on an entire market, you’ll drown. Make a name for yourself in smaller communities and build your reputation in a niche first.”

A graphic designer by trade, Bianca quickly transitioned into offering website design because of frequent requests from existing clients.

Her decision to accept challenging projects outside her comfort zone and force herself to deliver results meant years of moving along a steep learning curve in a new industry. However, Bianca was retaining more business and increasing her average client value, a win-win for most freelancers.

Bianca regularly acquires new customers through her content marketing efforts. “I have to say my best clients come from a mix of my free content and weekly emails.” Over the past five years, she’s generated several hundred thousands of dollars in revenue from email alone.

Here’s some parting advice from Bianca: “If you’re not afraid enough, you’re playing small and need to get outside of your comfort zone. If you’re not failing, you’re not learning or growing.”

As a freelance writer for the past 15 years, Joe has written for more than 500 publications, collaborated with several Fortune 500 companies, and received more than three dozen writing awards.

How has he become such a successful freelance writer? By focusing on niches. “You will make more money, and find it easier to market yourself, by focusing on niches,” Joe shares. “I write about many different topics, but I only stress one specialty to new clients.”

“At the beginning, you can confuse people with too much variety and cause them to go to a lesser writer who presents himself more narrowly.” Joe explains. He also recommends getting focused early on in your freelance career, on exactly which types of customers you want to go after — whether that’s small-business owners, technology startups, or enterprise clients.

Michelle is a blogger and freelancer who runs a very successful personal finance and lifestyle blog. Since 2011 she’s been using her MBA in finance to write compelling content for finance-related websites while growing her personal blog and brand.

“Now that I’ve built a sizable audience on Making Sense of Cents, I earn a majority of my income through affiliate marketing, advertising space, and managing content for a few other websites,” Michelle says.

But how did she build that audience in the first place?

By creating content that provides genuine value to her readers, having an incredible amount of transparency, and working hard to distribute her content on other relevant blogs and publications, she’s created quite a name for herself. The authority Michelle has built consistently brings her new opportunities for paid writing, content strategy consulting for other business owners, and more. She’s a textbook example of a person reaping the benefits of investments in personal branding.

For the past few years Brandon has offered SEO, online reputation management, content marketing, and conversion rate optimization services to clients from his home base in South Florida. Crucial to his success and authority in the industry has been getting featured on sites like Moz, Search Engine Journal, and others.

On how he’s brought on his best clients, Brandon says, “I’ve had the most luck through blogging for popular sites and getting featured in print publications. One article in particular led to connections that brought in about $40,000 in revenue over the course of one year.”

Brandon also found that the stability of retaining his day job while he grew his freelance business over the course of three years helped to keep him hyper-focused on his goals and reaching a sustainable, comfortable freelance income level before quitting his full-time gig.

With his freelance business, Tsahi has been offering a wide range of services around WebRTC technology for the past 10 years. He’s built a powerful name for himself in by creating frequent, value-driven blog content that genuinely helps potential customers solve their problems. Then, when they’re ready to hire someone to help, he’s the first person they come to.

I asked Tsahi to share the hardest lesson he’s learned along the path to starting a successful freelance business.

“Being good at what you do isn’t enough. I hate selling but I had to learn to sell myself. If you can’t do that, then find something else to do other than freelancing…” Tsahi says.

Another great piece of advice from Tsahi? Keep your day job or work part-time while you start your freelancing business. It gave him the confidence and foundation he needed to take the plunge. Tsahi continued working part-time for over a year before leaving the office behind to become a full-time consultant.

After starting her PR consultancy less than two years ago, Helen has been making waves for herself in her community. She offers media relations services, social media strategy, management of events, launches, and media training for executives in specific industries.

“Since starting my business in the spring of 2014, all of my clients have come from referrals,” says Helen. A former client whom she went above and beyond the call of duty for ended up referring multiple new clients, and the word kept spreading from there.

Helen also advises freelancers to only take on clients who understand the value of your services — not just people who are going to pay your bills. She says, “You can’t be all things to all people. It’s hard to walk away, but sometimes it’s necessary and better in the long run.”

Jason helps businesses all over the world set up and run their online marketing campaigns, primarily Google AdWords campaigns — something that can be difficult to navigate (and optimize) if you’re just getting started with paid acquisition in your business.

The biggest lesson Jason has learned in his years of freelancing?

“Learning how to spot and avoid dealing with idiots has been my hardest lesson. ‘Idiots’ are people who don’t pay their bills on time, tie you up on phone calls about nothing, lie to you, and expect work for sub-par pay. You have to avoid these people at all costs.”

When Jason first got started freelancing, he also kept his day job and spent time during his mornings and evenings working to get his first clients and grow his business. “Use your employer and paycheck to act as the capital you use to build your business,” he advises.

For the past 10 years Miranda has been a freelance writer for various online publications. Her work has been featured on Forbes, Huffington Post, AllBusiness, and more. She focuses on creating personal finance content for brands like Lending Tree, Fidelity, and Discover. Now she writes extensively about her successes, failures, and lessons learned from freelancing on her blog.

I asked Miranda to share how she was able to establish client relationships with such major brands.

“Big brands, often some of my best clients, are the result of building my reputation over time and being active within my niche. I focus mainly on content about finance, and over time my associations with other influencers and the work I’ve done, have created a body of work that has gotten me noticed.”

Unlike many of the other freelancers in this post, Miranda got her start as a freelancer immediately after completing her MA in Journalism. She knew the desk job lifestyle wasn’t for her and was dedicated enough to work hard and make her freelance business successful very quickly. The rest is history.

Whether you want to start generating freelance income while keeping your day job, or you’re ready to get serious about growing your existing client base, download our free eBook, The Freelancer’s Roadmap.

Every decision is an investment, so make choices that yield beneficial assets and opportunities for long-term growth.

Elon Musk is the kind of visionary who’s worth keeping tabs on. So when in July he made an under-the-radar purchase of X.com — a domain name he originally owned even before that company merged with PayPal — savvy entrepreneurs took note.

Did he buy the domain to promote SpaceX? Does he have plans for some new, unannounced venture? Was it a purely nostalgic grab? We don’t know yet, but we do know that he saw value in the domain and pulled the trigger.

Unfortunately, many other entrepreneurs aren’t so adept at seeing domain names and other business assets as investment opportunities rather than maintenance costs. For rising companies, the right investment at the right time could not only pay major dividends as the business grows, but it could also mean the difference between business success and failure.

Understanding investment opportunities.

Every decision a company makes is an investment — be it about new team members or new products — and leaders can further distinguish these investments into two categories: asset and business.

Assets such as real estate are some of the oldest forms of investment. Property ownership, for example, can help a young company diversify profits as it grows. Business investments, on the other hand, must align with the company’s vision, culture and goals, because these often require additional time and money to extract their potential value.

As a business owner for most of my life, I’ve seen companies mishandle or overlook myriad business investments, but the most common is the domain name space. Startups and small businesses often take the shortsighted approach of registering the best name available. By taking more time initially to understand the company’s brand and then determining the level of investment that it would take to buy a recognizable and memorable name, businesses can actually set themselves up for quicker and more efficient growth.

Related: How to Choose and Purchase a Domain Name

Examples abound of companies purchasing the names they want after they’re established: Twitter, which began with Twittr.com, eventually bought Twitter.com, and Facebook replaced TheFacebook.com with Facebook.com. Most businesses, though, don’t grow big enough to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a domain name the way others have. Using a little forethought and some business acumen, companies can better tie their domain names and other investments to their long-term strategic goals.

Smart investments for small businesses.

The best investments provide both assets that will immediately increase company value and opportunities for long-term growth while not sacrificing other necessary resources such as day-to-day operational costs. Here are three strategies to achieve that:

1. Focus on people investments.

When I started my company, my most critical job was to hire well. I looked for experienced and trusted team members who shared my vision for the business and our products and who also shared my vision of success. I didn’t need to fill out the whole staff right away — I needed only a few key people I could trust to own and grow their respective areas of the business.

Most importantly, when choosing a team, don’t treat them as a one-time purchase. According to a study by the Aberdeen Group, companies that institute formal employee engagement programs see a 26 percent increase in year-over-year revenue. Continue to invest in people’s development by keeping them involved in high-level decisions and showing them the impact their work has on the growth of the company.

Anheuser-Busch InBev’s approach to talent management is a great example of how to tackle such an investment: By assigning its new employees challenging tasks right out of the gate, it can better assess who will and won’t be able to contribute to the company’s future, allowing the company to moderate employee advancement accordingly.

Related: 4 Ways to Develop the Leaders You’ll Need in the Future

2. Spend time readying the team for success.

Teams need to be set up to succeed in their projects, and it’s a leader’s job to invest the time necessary to accomplish that. In fact, a study by Deloitte University Press indicates that while 90 percent of leaders understand the need for employee engagement in the workplace, fewer than 50 percent actually have strategies for implementing it.

Depending on what my company is launching, I tailor the training activities around that specific product or technology and foster its implementation by coaching my teams. At a minimum, I clearly define my vision, the problem that’s being solved with that launch and the strategy my company intends to follow to execute it. This sharing is critical to getting my teams energized and on board, because the more time I spend collaborating with them and planning for the future, the better the results have been.

3. Prioritize technology as tools for productivity.

During my years as an entrepreneur, I’ve found that no matter my level of funding, using technology to run lean has always been a worthwhile investment. According to the 2016 Brother Business survey, many businesses are already taking this step: Twenty-one percent of respondents say they plan to invest in programs like the cloud, and 28 percent intend to build their mobile workforce.

Some of my favorite technologies include ToutApp, a sales CRM; Slack, an internal communication and document sharing tool; and Dropbox Paper, a tool that allows us to work on shared documents. All of these are inexpensive investments that should be made early to maximize a team’s productivity.

As a company grows, other tools such as Salesforce, Pardot and more advanced systems may take the place of those earlier ones, but investing initial dollars wisely in technology can ignite a business’s scope and scale.

Related: 10 Ways You Should Invest Your Company’s First Profits

Leaders are always forced to balance what their business needs with what they have the capital to acquire, and spending a company’s last dollars on non-cash investments is never a good idea. Smaller businesses in particular need to keep an eye on their burn rate and always have at least three months’ worth of cash in reserve while still putting their money to work. The more a company can diversify its funds and invest in its future, the greater its chances of success.

Summary.   Artificial intelligence is a kind of catalyst; it’s the next wave of truly transformative technology with potential we cannot yet fully envision or appreciate. Companies will start by using this new technology to do “old things” before discovering the new opportunities it creates. So, how should they go about this process? They should: start by experimenting, deploy for productivity, transform experiences, and then try to build new things. Throughout this process, they should prioritize security and responsible use.

Recently, like millions of people, I used a ride-sharing app on my smartphone. It was pretty uneventful and not something I gave much thought. Ride-sharing is simple and convenient, and it’s now an $80+ billion industry. But it wasn’t that long ago that it didn’t even exist. We had cars, we had riders, and we had drivers; but to work, ride-sharing needed smartphones. When they arrived, so did an enormous variety of conveniences and new experiences — some that became entire industries — that we never could have imagined.

Artificial intelligence is a similar kind of catalyst; it’s the next wave of truly transformative technology with potential we cannot yet fully envision or appreciate. It is the defining technology of our time, changing the way we live and work. In my entire career in tech, I’ve never been more excited and optimistic than I am now. I have a colleague at Microsoft who talks about AI like this: You’ve got to use the “new thing” to do old things better. Then, you use the new thing to … do new things. He’s right.

Consider an example from health care. Paige is a software company using AI to change the way doctors identify, diagnose, and treat cancers. With properly trained and tuned models, AI can look at thousands of digital pathology images, pixel by pixel, and detect abnormalities faster and with more accuracy. Imagine what these tools can unlock not only for pathologists and doctors, but for patients, too. It means earlier disease detection, healthier lives, and more time with loved ones.

Right now every company, no matter the size or industry, should be thinking about AI. AI is moving from its auto-pilot phase, which was all about narrow, purpose-built tools that use machine learning models to make predictions, recommendations, and automate, to its copilot phase, where there’s tremendous opportunity to revolutionize how just about everything gets done. Leaders who embrace AI now and take action to understand it, experiment with it, and envision how it can solve hard problems are going to run companies that thrive in an AI world.

But where should they start? Nearly every day, I talk with business leaders who ask important questions about AI’s potential. No matter where you are in your AI journey, it’s incumbent upon every leader to embrace this unique time and take advantage of this powerful technology. If you feel unsure how to start, or how to move forward, you’re not alone. Like any business-planning exercise, think about your AI strategy in phases. Embrace agility and change, and keep a continuous learning mindset, calibrating and adjusting your gameplan as you go.

Start by Experimenting

The best way to learn about AI is to use it. It’s rare for new and disruptive technology to be immediately accessible. This is. Most of the leaders I talk with have tried popular AI applications like ChatGPT or the new Bing. There are many other options out there, but the point is to get curious.

Try applying it to whatever task is in front of you and see what it’s good at and what it’s not. Use it to generate interview questions, write a memo, research and summarize a topic you want to learn more about, or get thought starters for a document. I used Bing and ChatGPT to help me get ideas for a speech.  I’ve used Microsoft 365 Copilot, the AI integration across Microsoft apps to generate slides, to find and summarize documents that share a topic, and to recap email exchanges with colleagues. By using and experimenting with AI, you’ll be in a better position to imagine how it could be used in your organization — and you likely know better than anyone where opportunities and potential exist.

Deploy for Productivity

When it comes to productivity, AI copilots — from Microsoft and from others — can be deployed or embedded in applications to assist or simplify certain tasks. Less than two years since its launch, GitHub’s Copilot is already writing 46% of the code on its repository and helps developers code up to 55% faster. Imagine what developers are doing with that extra time. Three out of four users say it helps them conserve mental energy and focus on more satisfying work. Said another way: Creating new things and solving new problems.

Consider the workflows and process-driven activities in your business: things like payroll, on-boarding, or IT help desk support. These are all repeatable, rules-based processes that can be streamlined with AI. This is the driver behind an entire new category of AI software that can handle manual tasks and reshape scores of business processes.

There’s another way to think about AI for productivity: time. If you’re in fraud detection, or you’re a security analyst, time can be your biggest asset or your biggest challenge. If you can shorten the amount of time it takes to comb through lots of data-rich, time-sensitive information, you’re already better and more effective at your job.

Transform Experiences

Today, AI is already impacting how businesses deliver experiences that are better, faster, more efficient, or entirely new, from predictive text on your phone to chatbots on websites to suggested searches when you open a browser.

As an example, PwC is using Azure OpenAI Service to expand and scale its own AI offerings while also helping clients in industries like insurance or healthcare reimagine their businesses by leveraging the power of generative AI. CarMax is using it to analyze hundreds of thousands of customer reviews and surface key takeaways for buyers about every make, model, and year of vehicle in its inventory.

Even in its early stages, AI is making employee experiences better too. A recent Microsoft survey found that 89% of employees and business decision makers with access to automation and AI-powered tools feel more fulfilled. They say it’s because they can spend time on work that truly matters. Nine out of 10 said they want the opportunity to apply AI solutions to even more tasks and activities.

I see that happening already in some of the organizations I work with. They’re pursuing more advanced AI in use cases like customer support, writing assistance, or data extraction and classification. The common thread in each of these involves using AI to leverage resources or information you already have to transform experiences for people.

Build New Things

The above steps are versions of using the “new thing” to do old things better, to borrow my colleague’s turn of phrase. But how can you use the new thing to actually do new things? What can you do that’s completely different? How can you delight customers and create new lines of business and, with them, new revenue?

This is the challenge before business leaders right now; and it’s a hard one. The answer starts with integrating AI into your organization and iterating from there. Because while AI will enable people and organizations to achieve more, we’re at the very beginning of defining what “more” looks like. But to move ahead, we need to put in place the conditions that we help us discover what comes next.

One of the really exciting things about using AI to be more efficient — whether that’s using generative AI to get ideas or  to conduct research — is that it allows you to think more deeply about a concept or a problem you’re trying to solve. It’s not a far leap to imagine how this level of concentrated effort is going to enable companies to develop truly new and innovative solutions faster; and then take advantage of the snowball effect of that speed.

Throughout: Prioritize Security & Responsible AI

Alongside all of AI’s promise, one thing is certain. We will not realize AI’s full potential without safeguards. Technology has always been an accelerator and an enabler. AI is no different, but it does present potential risks that have to be managed.

For any company, the success of Responsible AI initiatives depends on at least three things. First, it takes committed and involved leadership. (Microsoft’s Vice Chair and President, Brad Smith, and our Chief Technology Officer, Kevin Scott, chair our Responsible AI Council.) Second, companies must build inclusive governance models and actionable guidelines, as we have done. Finally, they must also invest in responsible AI in the form of new engineering systems, incubations that are research-led, and in the people who will ensure that responsible AI principles are put into practice. At Microsoft, we have hundreds of people working on this, and for many of them, it’s their full-time job. Beyond that, we’ve adopted the mindset that using AI responsibly is a responsibility we all share, no matter your role.

The AI roadmap will be different for every organization, and it looks different depending on whether you’re a tech company or not. Tech companies are more likely to have already implemented some form of intelligent agent into their software experiences, for example. But for everyone, the potential is massive, and the time to start is now.

Just like ride-sharing needed smartphones, there are as-yet conceived industries that will need AI to get off the ground. Most of us recognize that AI will be completely game-changing. We see the practical applications — not only for the tech landscape but for humanity, and that’s what’s truly profound about this.

The AI market is moving quickly, and the cycles in and around AI are faster than we’ve ever seen. Right now, there is tremendous opportunity for business leaders to embrace AI and adapt to the profound changes that are coming. There is exponentially greater opportunity for the businesses that use AI to lead and drive that change.

Natasha Penzo is a real estate broker & the Co-Founder of Urban Blueprint Design + Build & Homekin. Connect with her on Instagram.

Being an entrepreneur can be lonely. I have, at times, been faced with a sense of isolation, a barrage of self-doubt and a case of imposter syndrome. The entrepreneurial path is riddled with hurdles, and it’s a journey that isn’t always portrayed accurately on social media. Success stories dominate our feeds, leading to inevitable comparisons. But as I navigate this path, I’ve discovered a supportive community of fellow entrepreneurs who have faced similar challenges. These connections serve as both a comforting presence and a valuable source of wisdom. Along this journey, I have come to accept some universal truths that transcend industry boundaries.

Embrace fear as a catalyst.

What I’ve heard over and over again is that a lot of people are scared. Fear is a constant companion in the entrepreneurial world, with the fear of failure being particularly paralyzing. Often, this fear arises from the prospect of failing in front of peers and competitors. Entrepreneurs take pride in their work and can be competitive. But acknowledging this fear, accepting that we are scared and understanding its source is the first step to conquering it. We must remember the “why” behind our businesses and take action anyway! After all, what is the worst that can happen? Instead of letting fear control us, we can harness it as a driving force.

Everyone has to start somewhere.

I love to speak to industry leaders and experts who are further along in their journey than I am. It’s fascinating to hear their stories about where they started and, through these conversations, it has become evident to me that nobody truly knew what they were doing at the outset. Furthermore, even as they achieve success they still don’t know everything or have all of the answers. No one is a superstar from the get-go; everyone has to start somewhere and recognize their skill and knowledge gaps. Simultaneously, it’s important to acknowledge our strengths and leverage them to our advantage. Entrepreneurship is about embracing the journey of continuous learning and growth. Entrepreneurship is about accepting that most of us aren’t prodigies yet we’re moving toward our goal anyway.

Perfection is not a prerequisite.

Another trait that these entrepreneurs tend to share is perfectionism, which can be both a boon and a bane. High achievers often set impossibly high standards for themselves, leading to analysis paralysis. As an example, I recently relaunched one of my company’s websites, but before the launch, I was obsessed with perfecting it. As a result, I was consumed with minute details, trying to perfect site daily, which, in retrospect, was not a productive or efficient use of my time. After sitting down with my career coach for a scheduled session, I finally realized that although the website is not 100% perfect, it’s still pretty great. Just because it’s not perfect, it doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t exist or that it can’t get better. Perfection is not a prerequisite for the existence of an idea, a company, a product or what have you. Imperfect but still great and functional work still has value. Understanding that things can always be improved is essential.

Tomorrow is never guaranteed.

On days when none of these points can spur me into action, I remember this: Tomorrow is not a guarantee. Five years ago, my family had a rude awakening. My mom, who is a firecracker of a businesswoman, was diagnosed with breast cancer, forcing her to take a step back and essentially stay at home for a year while she endured treatments and recovery from invasive surgeries. She survived and is more vivacious than ever today, for which we are eternally grateful, but this experience was a difficult lesson for us as a family and as individual entrepreneurs. In the whirlwind of daily life, we often delay taking action. Things can change very quickly and opportunities can slip away overnight, so what are we waiting for?

Entrepreneurship can be a journey filled with fears, doubts and the relentless pursuit of perfection. However, these challenges are surmountable, and they are shared by entrepreneurs worldwide. For that reason, for anyone who is experiencing any of these emotions, I encourage you to reach out to other fellow entrepreneurs, whether they are in your industry or not. I’m confident that they will tell you what others have told me; we must acknowledge our fears, our knowledge gaps and our desire for perfection but not let them hold us back. The most important lesson from this journey is to embrace life’s impermanence and act today, as we never truly know what tomorrow holds. In the end, what is there to lose by simply trying?