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1 month ago
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I love the democratization of business technology has ushered in. Thanks to smartphones and the internet, anyone can now become a media company or build a brand around something they are good at. But this exact idea—”it could be anyone“—also creates an illusion of ease.
“All influencers have to do is post pretty pictures.” “Of course their stock sells out every time, with this many followers.” But low barriers to entry also lead to high volumes of competition.
I’ve tried the same social media platforms several years apart, and there was always a world of difference in how much traction I could get with the same effort. My six-quotes-a-day Instagram channel in 2016 grew to 1,000 followers in 11 days. A few years later, I hired someone to post on another account daily for a year, and it stayed well below that number. Of course it’s harder if ten times as many people compete for perhaps two times as much attention.
But even more devious than the low friction in getting started is the fact that great performers make the hard look easy. I recently learned this at work: While I can present a written script with slides, stick roughly in a given time frame, and still make it sound as if I’m conversing normally, most people in my firm struggle immensely with this task. Creating a smooth video learning experience is much harder than it looks—and so is everything else.
It’s easy to buy a smartphone, a tripod, and hit record. But what are you gonna say? How are you going to edit? And how will you make it look as polished as most Youtube videos are nowadays?
It’s easy to set up an online store and order a special kind of pillow in bulk from Alibaba. But how will you get customers? What pricing is acceptable? And how can you manage the whole chain of getting the pillows from China into your buyers’ hands?
If it looks easy, fun, and rewarding, chances are it took who you’re looking at a decade or two to get there. The next time you’re dying to jump in on the action, ask yourself: Is this easy or just easy to try? Because if there are a thousand challenges hiding beneath the surface, you might as well stick to your guns.
Nik
Niklas Göke writes for dreamers, doers, and unbroken optimists. A self-taught writer with more than a decade of experience, Nik has published over 2,000 articles. His work has attracted tens of millions of readers and been featured in places like Business Insider, CNBC, Lifehacker, and many others. Nik has self-published 2 books thus far, most recently 2-Minute Pep Talks. Outside of his day job and daily blog, Nik loves reading, video games, and pizza, which he eats plenty a slice of in Munich, Germany, where he resides.
