The #1 Mistake Writers Must AVOID When Starting Out

The 1 Thing I Did That Led to MULTIPLE Business Failures…

Gabriel Klingman
2 min readAug 20, 2024
Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash

In 2015, I had the worst business idea ever created.

MyGuru.World

Whenever someone asked me how I was doing, I immediately told them how excited I was to launch this business.

The goal was to be the next Mindvalley or Masterclass.

I had no experience in this industry, no unique hook, no differentiator… but that didn’t slow my enthusiasm.

I put $1,000 I didn’t have on a credit card to get started.

Software and the domain name? Check.

Brilliant idea? Check.

Now I just needed to launch.

When I officially hit launch in November 2015, I was expecting a massive influx of customers who resonated with this idea.

I sat at my kitchen table, holding my breath, taring at the website analytics.

I hit refresh… Zero visitors…

I hit refresh again.

One visitor.

Zero sign ups…

Again.

Zero visitors…

A wave of nausea slowly crept in.

Nausea… and panic.

I put every spare moment into this project.

I spent money that I didn’t have.

I needed this to work.

I hit refresh again. Zero visitors.

This was the moment I learned… Marrying an idea does not mean you will get results.

It means you will struggle longer than you need and ignore any warning signs.

In the Writerpreneur Community Coffee Chat on Friday, we had questions about where to start when building your audience.

This first step is to come up with an idea and test it.

It doesn’t matter how good you think your idea is, how passionate you are, or how large of a need you believe you serve.

There is no idea that should be married.

You should treat every idea as an intern rather than a life-partner.

If the idea shows signs it can get the results you want, keep it around.

If it doesn’t, you try a new one.

If you’re a non-fiction writer who’s struggling to make money, you’re in the right place.

Building a business and being great at writing are two different skills.

I send out an (almost) daily short email with business and productivity tips for writers.

Click here to join Writerpreneur.

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Gabriel Klingman
Gabriel Klingman

Written by Gabriel Klingman

Ops Manager for Capitalism.com. In March, I wrote 70k words in 7 days. Follow to learn the business of writing.

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