When I started my company, I had a vision. I did not understand a balance sheet, an income statement, or the difference between revenue and profit. I have already described that in “What I Didn’t Know When I Started My Business”.
The decision and the assumption
Today, I want to revisit that experience through one question: what, exactly, was the decision?
Starting the company was the visible part. Beneath it was an assumption: that a vision and incoming business would be enough for me to learn everything else along the way.
What the early results actually confirmed
The first months did not immediately expose the weakness of that assumption. Work came in, phones rang, and people believed in the story. Every small success seemed to confirm that I knew what I was doing.
That is where the trap begins. When the market confirms that someone wants what we offer, it is easy to believe it has also confirmed our ability to run the whole company. Those are two different things.
I can have a good idea and a poor understanding of costs. I can make sales without knowing how much I earn. I can be busy from morning to night while the company grows weaker from within.
The possibilities I see today
Looking back at that beginning, I see three possible approaches. Wait until I understand the basics of running a business. Start and learn everything myself. Or start, but immediately involve people who understand what I do not.
This is how I see that beginning today. At the time, I did not have such a clear picture of what each possibility involved.
Waiting has a cost. It can delay a good opportunity, and complete readiness may never come. Learning everything alone also has a cost: mistakes are paid for while the business is already operating. The third approach requires something beginners often find difficult — admitting where they need help before problems force them to.
Consequences and the lesson
The consequences I described did not arrive as one major event. They came through bills, salaries, taxes, delays, mistaken assessments, and people leaving. Several small problems at once showed how dangerous it is to build the whole business around one kind of strength.
The lesson is not that I should have taken fewer risks. Nor that the vision had no value. The vision got the company started. But it could not replace the knowledge needed to keep it going.
That is why I would tell my younger self the same thing I wrote in the earlier essay: “Reshid, find people who know what you do not.”
What I would check before the next decision
Today, I would turn that sentence into a concrete practice. Before an important decision, I would write down what I know, what I am merely assuming, and who can check the part I do not understand. Then I would decide how to recognise that the decision is not producing the expected result.
Today, I would separate three questions that I combined too easily at the time: does the customer want what I offer, does the business make a profit, and can I meet obligations on time? The first answer cannot replace the other two.
I would also seek a clearer agreement with the people helping me. Who checks the part I do not understand? What do they need to explain before I decide? Which warning sign means we should pause and look at the decision again?
Involving people with greater expertise does not mean handing over my responsibility. It means understanding enough to ask a question, hear an answer I may not like, and change course while I can still influence the consequences.
It is not enough to ask whether I have the courage to start. I also need to ask whether I am willing to seek the knowledge I lack in time.
Related reading: What I Didn’t Know When I Started My Business.
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