The 5 Mistakes I Made Starting From Zero (That Cost Me Months)

I made a lot of mistakes when I started. Most of them were predictable, in hindsight. Someone could have warned me and I probably would have ignored the warning anyway — but let me try.

These are the five mistakes that cost me the most time. Not money — time. Months I spent going in directions that went nowhere, doing things that felt like progress but weren't.

If you're just starting, read this slowly.

Mistake #1: Being Too Broad

My first attempt at an online business was a "business tips" blog. Everything about business, for everyone. Marketing, productivity, finance, mindset, tools — all of it, for any entrepreneur.

I wrote 40 articles. I got 200 monthly visitors after four months. Two email subscribers (my mom and someone I'll never identify).

The problem: I was writing for everyone, which meant I was writing for no one. When you're broad, you can't rank in search engines (too much competition), you can't build a loyal audience (too many different types of people), and you can't sell a product (too vague a value proposition).

The fix: Be specific. One topic, one type of person, one specific problem. My niche now: systems and templates for freelancers trying to reduce client management chaos. 10x fewer people, 100x better results.

Mistake #2: Waiting Too Long to Build the Product

I spent four months building an audience before I created a product. My logic was: "build the audience first, then figure out what to sell them."

The problem: I had no product to sell them once the audience existed. And my "audience building" was unfocused because I didn't know what I was ultimately trying to sell. I was writing content for writing content's sake.

The fix: Build the product first. Or at minimum, in parallel with the first content. You need something to sell. Everything else is infrastructure for selling it. I now have a product live before I publish the first piece of content in any new project.

Mistake #3: Using the Wrong Platform

I started on Gumroad. I didn't research alternatives. I'd heard the name, I knew creators used it, and I set it up in an afternoon.

The fees hit me later. Around 10% per transaction, plus payment processing. On a $47 product, I was losing $4–$5 every sale. On my first 30 sales, that was $120–$150 I didn't have to lose.

When I moved to MadeThis, there were no platform transaction fees. I kept the full product price (minus payment processor, which is unavoidable). Over a year, the difference is significant.

The fix: Before you pick a platform, check the alternatives to the obvious choices. I should have done this before setting up my first storefront.

Mistake #4: Underpricing Out of Insecurity

My first product was $9. A 15-page guide I'd spent a weekend building.

Why $9? Because I was scared nobody would buy it. I thought a lower price meant fewer objections. I was wrong.

Low prices create low perceived value. A $9 product communicates "this probably isn't very good." The same product at $37 communicates "this is a real tool worth investing in." I know this sounds like marketing nonsense, but the data bears it out — I sold more copies at $37 than at $9.

Beyond that, at $9 you need to sell 111 copies to make $1,000. At $47, you need 22. The mental math of "just lower the price to get more sales" falls apart when you look at how many more sales you need to hit meaningful numbers.

The fix: Price for the value you deliver, not for the fear of rejection. My floor now is $27. Most products start at $47.

Mistake #5: Building in Isolation

For the first six months, I worked entirely alone. I didn't share my work until it was "ready." I didn't ask for feedback. I didn't show anyone what I was building.

The result: I built the wrong product for the wrong audience and had to start over.

If I'd been sharing what I was working on from the beginning — posting about the process, asking my small audience what they actually needed, showing early drafts — I would have caught these alignment problems in week two instead of month five.

The fix: Build in public. Not because it's a trendy tactic, but because external feedback is how you catch your own blind spots. You can't see your own assumptions from inside them.

The Pattern Across All Five

All five of these mistakes share a root cause: I was optimizing for comfort instead of for feedback.

Broad niche = comfortable because nothing felt out of scope. No product = comfortable because you can't fail at selling something that doesn't exist. Wrong platform = comfortable because the first one I tried "worked." Underpricing = comfortable because it minimized rejection risk. Building in isolation = comfortable because nothing could be criticized.

Every time I chose comfort, I chose delay. Every time I got uncomfortable — specific niche, real product, real price, real feedback — things moved faster.

For the specific steps that worked once I fixed these mistakes, see the 90-day roadmap post. And if you want to see where I'd start from scratch today — including the platform I'd use — that post walks through day one to day seven.

If you're just starting: pick a specific niche, build a product before you feel ready, and put it on MadeThis where you won't lose money to platform fees. Make it public before it's perfect.

Learn from my wasted months. You don't have to repeat them.