How do you make your business work?

I have been running zakatlists since June 2019 for nearly 8 months. It is only one way spendings. In the middle, I freeze it due to lack of fundings and other personal projects running in parallel. After one month, I brought it back online. These confusions and lack of motivation did not help at all. I wasted tons of hours to hit a dead end.

Days of going down and getting back up

Since 7 December 2019, I have been working on this project for most part of the days. It is now gaining momentum and most of my friends have started discussing its vision in gatherings. Zakatlists is now getting acknowledgement. Traffic graph is going up and I am feeling better every morning. 10 to 20 people per week in December 2019 has gone up to 20 to 30 people per day.

I will take you to the point throught 4 aveneus of inspiration

1. Ethen running Kanban Mail

2. The Lean Startup by Eric Ries

3. Message in Quran

4. Actions of a leader

1. The tip to success by Ethen

Yesterday I read an article from oyestartups. According to Ethen, running kanbanmail, an email client;

Read this article at oyestartups

Ethen faces a problem in school. Makes a product in 2018. Launches it in 10 months. Grabs audience and is earning nearly $ 176 Monthly Recurring Revenue.

Right after this read, I look at myself and label myself a novice developer who has not done any worthwhile project his entire life. No influx of income, zero MRR and all down hill run since starting zakatlists. I am also 16 years older to him, twice his age and I am equally capable. Still, all these failures.. Are they worth it?

2. Is it necessary to run with no income for so long? - The Lean Startup

I think, it is wrong. The projects are worth succeeding. They fail because either they lack your personality’s touch or you are not developing the attitude to lead your projects. A project or a business is a reflection of your personal self. The more transparent and human you make your businesses, the sooner they will start succeeding.

We discussed it during 1st meetup of this year; The Lean Startup

It is not wise to be wasteful most hours of your days. It is also not wise to be wasteful most days of your year. Read Lean Startup. It focuses on iteration, increasing the cycle of creating, launching and failing. It talks of failing more often, that we increase the probability of succeeding more often.

3. Another book says - The Quran

Indeed, those who disbelieve in Allah and His messengers and wish to discriminate between Allah and His messengers and say, “We believe in some and disbelieve in others,” and wish to adopt a way in between.
- Surah Al Nisa verse 150

This book focuses on adopting a project in its entirety. There is no middle way. We can not skip marketing through blogs, networking, sharing on whatsapp, and talking loud. Only focusing on continous coding takes a toll on your health. Coding coupled with the humanly touch brings colors to your projects.

The less compromising path is the longest path. Sooner we adopt to the right path, the sooner we will be making our businesses tick.

4. Gandhi says - A leader

Happiness is when what you think, what you speak and what you do are in harmony.

For Gandhi, to make it to leading millions around him, convincing everyone of them about his struggle to freedom had been impossible. He found only one way to success. He carried one version of himself. He did not perform bad transactions and gave false hopes. He made it to independent India by becoming more transparent.

Conclusion

All successful entrepreneurs, leaders and great books want us to go completely transparent. Our transactions, dealings, business cards, websites and twitter handles need to act human. Bots, professionalism-misinterpreted, shyness and lack of courage only dulls down the color of your business. It needs to be more in human who is fuelling its engines. It should fly higher, run faster and meet success sooner. Delaying it, only delays the colors it can bring to your life.