If you could go back to year one, what is the one thing you would change? Not general advice. Specific mistake you made that cost you time or money. I am in my first year and trying to avoid the obvious traps.

Spent 6 months to build the "perfect" product before talking to a single customer

Worked on features nobody used. Designed a landing page nobody saw. Built an email list of zero people.

Launched to crickets and had to throw away half of what I built and start over based on actual conversations.

If I could go back I would have made a bare minimum version in a weekend and showed it to 10 people before writing another line of code. Would have saved me about 4 months and maybe $2k in tools I never needed.

What are you building right now and have you shown it to anyone?

Tracked my "deep work" hours for a month. Only 11 per week on average. The rest was admin and context switching. Brutal reality check.

I would have niched down six months sooner. The generalist phase felt safe but it was actually just slow drowning.

Charged more from day one. My early clients were the hardest to work with and the least profitable. Higher prices filter for better people.

Built my email list before my product. I launched to crickets because I had nobody to tell. The product was good. The distribution was zero.

Hired help earlier. I thought I couldn't afford it. Turns out I couldn't afford not to. The time I spent on admin was time I wasn't earning.

I would have tracked my numbers from month one. Revenue, hours, client sources. I flew blind for a year and made decisions based on feelings instead of facts.

I would have hired an accountant immediately. Not in month eight when I was drowning in receipts. The $200 a month would have saved me $1,700 in mistakes.

I said yes to every project. Including one that required skills I didn't have. I learned on the client's dime. Unethical. Never again.

I would have started an email list on day one. Even if it was just my mom and three friends. Compound interest applies to audiences too.

My first website cost $2,000 and looked terrible. I could have spent $300 on a template and looked better. Perfect is expensive.

I would have hired an accountant immediately. not in month eight when i was drowning in receipts. the $200 a month would have saved me $2,000 in mistakes and probably an audit. adulting is expensive.

Said yes to every project including one that required skills i didn't have. learned on the client's dime. felt gross about it. never again. now i say "that's not my specialty but i know someone" and take a referral fee.

I would have tracked my time from the beginning. Not to bill hourly, but to know what I was actually earning per hour. Ignorance was not bliss.