The One Thing Every First-Time Entrepreneur Gets Wrong
By Digby R. Kerr · Kerr University™ · All Articles
After thirty-five years inside large logistics companies, I started my own venture later than most. I had the operations experience, the network, the credibility — everything you would think someone needs to start a business. What I didn't have, for the first six months, was a single client.
I spent those six months building. A website. A logo. A business plan with five-year projections that, looking back, were essentially fiction. I told myself I was preparing. What I was actually doing was waiting — waiting until everything felt ready before I let anyone see it.
Here is the one thing I see almost every first-time entrepreneur get wrong, because I got it wrong myself: they treat the business as something to be finished before it can be shown to the world. It is the opposite. The business gets finished by showing it to the world.
Why "Ready" Never Comes
I had spent decades in environments where a shipment either arrived on time or it didn't — where the metrics were brutal and immediate. Starting a business with no scoreboard, no deadline, and no one checking your work was disorienting. Without external pressure, "ready" becomes a moving target. There is always one more thing to fix.
The fix came from an unlikely place. A former colleague asked me, almost in passing, if I'd help her think through a negotiation she was nervous about. I said yes before I'd even thought about whether my "business" was ready for a client. We talked for forty-five minutes. She told two people about it. One of them called me the following week.
That conversation did more for my business than the previous six months combined.
What To Do Instead
1. Find your first real conversation this week. Not a sale. A conversation. With someone who has the problem you solve.
2. Let the offer be rough. Mine was. The first version of anything is a draft, including your business.
3. Track what people actually ask for, not what you assumed they'd want. My early plans focused heavily on logistics consulting. The first real demand I found was for business coaching and English fluency. I followed the demand.
The reframe: You are not launching a finished business. You are starting a conversation that will tell you what the business should become.
The bottom line: The market will teach you faster than any amount of planning. Your job is simply to start the lesson.
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