Starting a Startup Is Scary (and Nobody Talks About It)

I recorded my first YouTube video about something I don't see many people talking about: the fear of building a business. Not the fear of starting, which everyone expects, but the fear that shows up when things finally start moving.

Anyone who builds something from scratch knows this phase. You spend months working with nobody watching. Things move slowly, almost to a standstill. You have to go after people who believe in the idea, sometimes before you're even sure it will work.

Then there's a moment when everything speeds up. Doors start opening, conversations happen, people start calling you an entrepreneur. And, to my surprise, what came wasn't just joy. It was fear.

Fear that what I built won't work the way it should. Fear that people won't like it. Fear of the legal side and the bureaucracy, which are a lot, and which I'm still learning to understand.

Over time, I came to understand that this feeling is normal. I've never done this before. Of course it's scary.

The part nobody shows

Online, there's pressure to look like you have it all figured out, all the time. Confident, secure, everything under control. People who build businesses almost never talk about insecurity, about the nights spent wondering if they're doing the right thing, about the feeling of not being ready.

But vulnerability exists, and it's okay that it does. Hiding it doesn't make the fear go away. It only makes each person think they're the only one who feels it.

To be honest, I recorded this video much more for myself than for anyone else.

Doing it before you're ready

There's a phrase that stays with me: doing things while you're still not prepared takes you places you can't imagine. For me, that's very real.

Everything that's happening today, I wish it had happened four years ago. Back then it didn't work out, I got frustrated and almost gave up on programming because of it. Today I'm 23 and things are happening, not because I felt ready, but because I kept going.

So the message I want to leave is: keep going and believe in yourselves. It's normal to be afraid. What matters is that fear doesn't freeze you or make you stop.

🎥 The full video is on my channel (in Portuguese):

If you're also building something and feel this fear, tell me in the video's comments. I think we need to talk about this more.