How to Lose Money Gracefully

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There was a massive barrier in my early years of making money online. While I was definitely seeing money roll in, there was always a glass ceiling on how far I could get with it. It wasn’t until much later I realised that I couldn’t get far quickly without actually spending some of my own first.

I know now through experience that I don’t necessarily have too invest anything to make money, but it absolutely catalyses the process. For example, blogs can be done for free and earn money, but I can assure you that you’ll earn much more – and far sooner – if you buy your own domain and hosting first.

Why didn’t I want to spend any of my own money? I didn’t have very much. Between 16 and 18, other than the weekly £30 from EMA, I had nothing else. I was using that money and my online earnings towards clothes (fly Japanese and US-imported ones at that) and hadn’t even considered how I could flip the cash through what I was already doing, probably because I thought I would just lose it.

Once my bank balance was a bit more comfortable, I went wild – throwing cash at every money-making opportunity I came across. Of course, at the time I thought I was actually going to do them all. Equipment would start to gather dust, domain renewals started rolling around, and stock investments went completely to waste.

Remember that we’re not just blindly gambling here; losing any money hurts at first. But when you’re using money to get an entrepreneurial pursuit off the ground, you can actually gain from the experience.

Losing money of my own doing taught me plenty of lessons:

Focus, avoid a slew of new projects at the same time
Single-domain hosting plans are for people that aren’t serious
Diversify. Diversify
Invest as much as you can afford to lose
Think even bigger
Prioritise profit
Keep things moving and stop dwelling on what’s already happened

The way to lose money gracefully is to recognise and act upon the lessons you’ve taught yourself.

Confidence is everything. You have to have faith in the process and your abilities. But for me, that only came with experience. It took ages to be sure that when I was going into a new project, I’d be able to pull it off. Losing money – unfortunately – was the only way to get there.