I arrived in Hungary in February 2021, a new entrepreneur with a ‘solid’ business plan for the next 6 months. By August 2021, I would have a fully functioning business, be making a reasonable income and I would have just begun making my mark on this world. But like any good adventure story, my road was riddled with difficulties, and I was about to discover them all.
When I arrived, I was so set on helping video gamers achieve their income goals. But my first major lesson is that I really didn’t know my audience that well at all. For many, playing games is about escaping real life and living a new virtual one, not about trying to make an income. I had many chats with Daniel about what I should do; my fear of ‘failing’, everything being a waste of time. His advice was always the same: Take a step back and do something different. So I changed my approach and began to focus on specifically helping content creators to build communities. But I had no credibility. I tried to step up my social proof by becoming the audience I wanted to connect with, but the truth is, I didn’t want to be like them. I wanted to build amazing communities and design creative solutions to the problems that come with making a community. I realised I didn’t need to just focus on gamers. I could help other entrepreneurs who want to build engaged communities and all my experience in building my own community is exactly what they need.
I thought that gaming was the only niche I wanted to work in and that I would have a fully functional business by the end of the exchange. But the benefit of having a mentor who believes strongly in personal development, is that you’re forced to look at yourself frequently and challenge your beliefs. Erasmus has helped me to understand that being prepared to change and accepting it, is an important requirement of being an entrepreneur. My work with Daniel has taught me so many lessons. He’s shown me to focus on the activities that actively push my business along. To maintain a balance between working and the things that I enjoy in life. To step back and allow external inspiration to come from the world around me. I believe I’ve also helped Daniel too. By giving him a different perspective on his startups; how he can refine his processes to reach more clients and automate some of his work.
To summarise my journey in 3 words:
Collaboration is the importance of working with others. It broadens what you can offer and stops you trying to do everything on your own. Collaboration has helped me to grow a huge entrepreneurial network and work with others to put out more value into the world.
Control is about prioritising what you do each day. Focusing on tasks that make a difference in your business is a must. Without control, I never would have made the decision to merge my gaming community, so that I could focus on the main activity I love; building communities.
Change is being flexible. Things are not going to go how you planned. You are going to get tossed around, but by being flexible, you’ll be able to take on each challenge and adjust accordingly.
At the end of my exchange, I’m helping 6 entrepreneurs to build their own communities. I have the roadmap for a course and all the knowledge my pitfalls have helped me to learn. It might not be the plan I had at the start, but I’ve come a long way and I’m going to keep walking this entrepreneurial path.