Introduction

Let me introduce myself. My name is Hannah, I'm 29 years old...or young, depending on which side you bite into the apple from, and I recently started my (first) company, Lola Orange.

*hold for applause*

As a freshly baked entrepreneur, I naturally listen to podcasts by and with founders and their stories every minute I can spare to do so, read blogs and watch interviews and speeches about their victory in the business world.

I love living in a time when I have the chance to tap into and learn from the thoughts and experiences of those I admire. But what I noticed fairly quickly was that the moments when it was really hard were often grazed in one or two sentences, although from other founders I've had the pleasure of meeting and also from now my own young experiences, that these moments are more than just moments.

They are mostly months of despair, fear and suffering. But this understandably doesn't come across in the summary of one's entire professional life over decades quite the way it felt at the time. Especially, of course, because these feelings, as hard as they can be, are part of the game, can even give you strength and incentive, and make every success even more colourful. They're just part of it and half the fun.

That's why I'd like to hear so much more about it.

Especially in the beginning, I'm learning about all of this now, as I'm putting my heart on the line for the first time in my life, giving it my all, wanting to prove everything to myself and the world, and dealing with anxiety about the unknown of the future is a big part of self-employment.

After all, starting something means inventing or creating something that didn't exist before, which makes it not exactly an apprenticeship, which means that every entrepreneur will and must figure everything out along the way and let's be honest and let's admit to ourselves that we have absolutely no clue about what we're actually doing.

The more I listened to the seasoned founders talk about how they mastered their path to success, the more I thought to myself how much I would have loved to hear this story just when it happened.

Long story not so short, I decided to just document everything, that I will stumble upon along the way, which will probably act more as my diary and possibly later as evidence when I finally lose my mind completely and everyone can say in a voice I can impossibly imitate in written form "well, I’VE always seen it coming!"

But should this not happen, and perhaps against all odds I will build a successful business...or fail miserably and like Icarus burn myself and hurtle to the ground.

Either way I think, this is yet a good way for my founding, young, clueless, ambitious, brave, insane, wonderful colleagues out there to:

1. see that you are not alone.

2. laugh at my mistakes and yours as well.

3. see it's totally normal to have doubts and fears and that they are not even necessarily a bad thing.

4. know it is totally OK to express them, because either we are in the same boat and know exactly what you mean or those who are not in the same boat and therefore might not understand 100% exactly what you feel but still could give a good outside perspective.

5. realize that you can exchange ideas and thoughts with each other to learn one thing from another, that you haven't figured out yet or to show someone something that you have discovered yourself, but they haven't yet in order to offer support and help and maybe even create long term connections that you can fall back on again and again along the way.

6. have fun.

I hope I will be able to entertain you with my thought, struggles and triumphs and hopefully also give you a bit of whatever you are looking for.

Personally, of course, I also hope that this will be the beginning of something special. We will see. Bets are still to be placed.

Of course, I am always happy to hear from anyone, no matter what you have to say.

Just write to me at: hannah@lolaorange.com or text me on any social medium you can find me on.

See you soon for the next episode!