Some of you may know the story I shared in the first episode of the Remote Local Podcast in which I shared that it was a thread on Reddit that led me to start a cleaning business. Little did I know that eight years later I’d have a chance to interview the man who started that thread, Rohan Gilkes, and learn even more from his journey.
Now, before you start scourging Reddit for entrepreneurial ideas, beware: Reddit can be a giant time-waster and is the best procrastination website in existence (in my humble opinion). BUT, if you’re subscribed to the right threads, and are focused on adding value, you’ll find plenty of value in return. My company, MaidThis, is just one of the many success stories that came out of that seemingly innocuous thread.
In the most recent episode of the Remote Local Podcast David Lahav and I got to ask Rohan why he started the Reddit thread in the first place. Rohan said:
- He was bored. He was on this entrepreneurial journey by himself.
- He wanted accountability.
Rohan couldn’t have known it at the time, but those two reasons, being alone on the entrepreneurial ride and needing accountability on that ride, are big pieces of the daily/weekly/monthly/annual lives of entrepreneurs.
Here’s the lonely truth of the entrepreneurial journey: You can’t talk to your employees about the challenges you are facing as a business owner. You certainly can’t talk to your competition. If you’ve got a mentor, that’s one place you can go. But if you don’t have a mentor, a community is the next best place. This can’t be just any community (sorry, your fantasy football community doesn’t count here), it has to be those who are in your industry or who are business owners. David and I met at an event for one of those communities, the Dynamite Circle. There are TONS of these communities online, find the one that best suits your personality.
The other thing that a community can offer is accountability. It’s all well and good to have goals, but without someone or some way to keep you on track (and encourage you when you’re feeling down) those goals have little chance of succeeding.
Documenting and sharing the journey while getting accountability helped Rohan accelerate, and before too long he was able to leave his job and pursue entrepreneurship full-time. That wasn’t an overnight process. He worked his job from 9-5 and from 5:30pm to midnight he just went to a local coffee shop and did what needed to be done. You don’t need to read the biographies of celebrity entrepreneurs to hear these true-life stories of hustle. You can often get them from the entrepreneurs to the left and to the right of you.
Starting a business is rarely easy, but it can be very simple. Rohan saw an opportunity, gave it a shot, saw that it worked, gave it more time, then built it into something special. Listen to his story and where he is now on his journey (PS: it’s not still running a cleaning business!).
This article was written by Neel from MaidThis Franchise, a remote-local franchise opportunity for people looking to escape the rate race and reach financial freedom. Learn more here.
Photo by Riccardo Annandale on Unsplash
