After two years of obsessively watching online business videos, a Reddit user decided to quit and start his own business. But the reality turned out to be very different from the promises found on the Internet: months without customers, panic, price cuts made too early and the feeling that nothing works. His story opened a debate about how social media creates unrealistic expectations about entrepreneurship.
“Each video made it seem ridiculously simple: pick a niche, build an audience and start making money,” says the user on Reddit. The first few months were nothing like the image of quick success promoted online. He says he spent weeks choosing logos, fonts, site animations and brand colors, trying to make everything look as professional as possible. But the result was disappointing: no customers.
After four months he began to panic and cut prices, even though hardly anyone knew his business existed. It wasn’t until six months later, when he was almost ready to give up, that the first client willing to pay for his services appeared, following a comment left in a Facebook group dedicated to his niche. His experience generated countless reactions from other young people who admitted that they had been through similar situations.
“TikTok sells the elevator, not the stairs”
Entrepreneur Cosmin Răileanu says that one of the biggest problems with business content distributed on TikTok and YouTube is that it almost exclusively presents the end result.
According to him, many people come to believe that success can be achieved quickly, without the difficult process that precedes it.
“It’s like when you want to achieve success, and success means climbing a 10-story building, getting to the top of that building, but you want to take the elevator and you don’t want to take the stairs, step by step.” explains the entrepreneur for “The truth”.
In his opinion, social networks have created the impression that entrepreneurship is simple and accessible to anyone, while the real difficulties are rarely presented and the online is full of “overnight mentors who have never done business but only read a few books or do motivational content with ChatGPT”.
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Another major factor holding back early adopters is financial pressure taken on too early. Cosmin Răileanu draws attention to a frequent mistake that kills the entrepreneurial spirit: huge loans.
“They are young people who have a good job at a certain time in their life and buy a 200,000 euro apartment for 30 years. That’s when they stay just stuck. They are no longer dynamic, but in the red, and if they have two or three bad months in entrepreneurship, it is possible that their house will be taken away and they will remain on the streets. There are many cases of people who took a risk, lost their house, lost their business and started from scratch”, he warns, stressing that a house should only be bought when the business produces enough profit.
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In his opinion, the problem is not the purchase of a home itself, but the assumption of large financial obligations before the income from a business is sufficiently stable.
Ego and the brutal price of performance
One of the most prevalent images promoted online is that of the entrepreneur who works when he wants, travels constantly and generates considerable income with minimal effort. The reality is often the opposite, and the price of success is often cruel.
“No one understands that the price of performance is much higher than it seems at first glance. We see that another was bankrupt and succeeded, but we don’t realize that that man may have had nothing to eat, no place to sleep, seen his children rarely, over the years, or maybe even left his parents on the road because he sold their house. Many have paid a price that 90% of entrepreneurs are not prepared to pay.” explains Cosmin Răileanu.
The entrepreneur claims that many people start out without being prepared for a temporary drop in living standards and the financial sacrifices that can occur in the first years of business.
He points out that entrepreneurship requires a total relinquishment of the ego and the comfortable lifestyle from the start: “If you think you’re the type who doesn’t take public transport or only goes on certain holidays, you won’t evolve. (…) Life takes its toll. Until you’re poor, you can’t be rich.”
Embarrassment at networking events and fear of speaking up
Paradoxically, exactly those who would need the most support (young people at the beginning of the journey) self-isolate. Cosmin Răileanu confesses that he noticed how, at physical networking meetings, only those who are already successful come. “Those who would most need connections and ideas don’t come because they’re ashamed. They’re ashamed if they know they don’t have a business yet, that they haven’t proven anything, or that they’re working hard and they don’t have enough money.” he says.
The mistake of keeping the business idea a secret is also born from insecurity. Many believe that if they don’t tell anyone what their plans are, they are protected from failure or having their idea stolen. In reality, this behavior is “a total lack of confidence in what you want to do”, consider the specialist.
“One of the keys to success is to talk about your business with your loved ones. By making a promise to them that you will achieve that thing, you mobilize yourself. The promises you make to your loved ones, which you don’t want to disappoint, are stronger than your own personal motivation”, he completes.
For those thinking of quitting and starting a business, the entrepreneur recommends taking small steps, such as freelancing with 2-3 clients, and validating the idea before taking major risks: “The natural route is to solve a problem in the market. I think that’s the secret,” he concludes. The Reddit user’s story seems to confirm the same lesson: progress didn’t come from a perfect logo, but from a real conversation with a customer who solved a need.
