Reflecting on my failure to earn a million dollars

A friend on twitter @PeterHolzer16 and I hand-shook on a deal today:

Share one failure story.

Any story from the past. A genuine failure. Something we can all learn from one another.

Some context:
The genesis story for how this came about: We were chatting about failure, about we wished more people shared their failure stories versus wins. I definitely get more utility and insight from learning from the failures of others than a “We hit $10k MRR!” win.

So here’s mine, about that one time when I set out to earn a million dollars, and failed spectacularly.

“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” ― Norman Vincent Peale

That was my mindset going into this audacious goal. It’s not “Why?”, but “Why the hell not?!” I was just starting on my indie hacker, solopreneur journey, and reality-distorting optimism from naivety was in abundance.

It was June 2019. Someone just asked me the million dollar question we’ve all heard: “What would you do if you got a million dollars now?” What if we flipped that around, and asked instead, “How do I make a million dollars?” I was stoked to try to answer that question. Over the next 6 months I proceeded to think and write about it. Plotting.

Then Jan 2020 came along and I decided to go all in on this crazy goal:

I will learn my way towards $1M ARR by 1st Jan 2021. In return, I will learn how to grow my indie products diligently, adhere to a millionaire habit system, and earn at least $83,333/month."

The destination was true wealth and financial freedom. My broad plan was to earn more, invest more, spend less, save more. I thought, maybe a $83/m SaaS product from 1000 true fans will do it.

I truly wanted to hit it at all costs. It was no longer just a moonshot goal to land among the stars. With a baby coming along, I knew I wanted my family to be financially comfortable for the next life stage. Now it’s high stakes.

But it was too much stress. I had tunnel-vision on the goal, and that stressed me out. I was fixated on reaching that vision of the future. I wasn’t very good at breaking things down to get to that big goal.

And soon enough I went down with shingles. We know that the chicken pox virus stays in the body waiting to attack again, and our immune system keeps it down. Only when your immunity is compromised does it have a opening to attack you. Shingles was a sign that I gave myself so much stress that my immunity levels were bad. Chronic stress was by now a familiar condition, and this was not the first time I was immune-compromised.

Things had to change.

So I gave myself a break. Got to keep it fun, keep it sustainable, I told myself. Adult up. Play the long game. Go slow. But I kept going.

Then the pandemic happened in Apr 2020, and whatever little of that momentum was lost. I found myself scoping down my goal in ever-increasing multiples:

❌ 2020: $1,000,000 ARR (i.e. $83,333 MRR)
❌ 2021: $5,000 MRR (but I downsized it to $100 MRR near the end of the year, and I hit it)
🤭 2022: $200 MRR (humbled)

I’ve learned a lot from this failure:

• Goals help, but habits/systems ensure you make progress. I had the optimism and audacity to set big goals, but I didn’t have the skills and systems to make them happen… yet.
• Patience is a crucial counter to ambition. If I didn’t have patience, ambition will only give me anxiety and stress. Which was what happened.
• Scoping down the goal helped. But also didn’t help. It was more realistic, I could achieve it without over-stressing myself. But I kind of felt I lost a spark along the way. Yet tunneling on the million dollar goal would be unrealistic.

Some questions I still ponder over now:

• Did I over-reach then? Or am I under-reaching now?
• Do goals even matter?
• Why do I have such a poor relationship with money?
• Money is an enabler, not the endgame. What’s the endgame in life I want? How do I ‘win’?
• Will I ever try again?