Hello everyone (this is Jane). When Mathenge pitched this topic to me, I said this to him –
“I am a strong believer of “not all bloggers are entrepreneurs” – you know some people just blog for fun, some blog without a business plan, some blog without clarity and I hate to associate the term “entrepreneurs” to those 🙂
But I can see “how” blogging and entrepreneurship can be compared and how they share some similar aspects. And your post says that I guess.
Do you get what I say? Do you agree? Let me know – in any case, if you are willing to slightly change course of your pitch to “how they both compare” rather than saying they are one and the same – I am OK with it. You may proceed writing the post :).”
And now, after reading his post I can clearly see what he shares. I am happy to publish this piece as it shares my own opinion on the topic to.
Now on to Mathenge …
I have been hooked on entrepreneurship like a junkie gets hooked on coke.
I remember in my years of primary school I would steal mom’s 10 bob to go and buy some little balls that kids in my school used to play a certain game with.
Back then, these little balls only cost 50cents each.
I had managed to strike a deal with a local shop owner and he had agreed to reduce the price for me to only 45cents for each ball.
That means with only 10 bob I managed to buy 22 balls. These I would take to my school and sell each one for 3 bobs. Earning me a profit of 360%.
Of course, my mum never knew about what I was doing.
Thank God, she does not actually have an internet connection right now as I would hate her finding out what I was doing instead of going to school to listen to teachers all day long.
I don’t sell those little balls any more. Nowadays I actually sell bigger things.
About two months back I started doing this thing that I had been hearing of for very long.
This thing that had been in front of me all day long any time I headed out to Google and punched in some key words looking for any particular information (you can actually guess what kind of information I was looking for being a teenager. Okay I will tell you, it’s dating advice 😊).
They call it blogging.
I had read some blog posts about blogging on the internet that made blogging look like drinking a cold soda on a hot African noon.
All they suggested that I needed to do was get hosting and a domain name and then phew I would be a blogging hero like the likes of Jane, Neil Patel, Yaro Starak and Pat Flynn.
Of course, what I didn’t realize was that these guys were only writing these crappy blog posts in order to make their readers to sign up for hosting using one of the many affiliate links that they provided in their blog posts.
The previous 2 months in blogging have really taught me a lot of stuff.
And a major one is that blogging and entrepreneurship are totally comparable.
Reasons why blogging and entrepreneurship are comparable
It takes time to see any results
I had been looking at my google analytics for a really long time and wondering what the hell is actually wrong with me.
Is my writing just so mediocre such that only very few people considered stopping by and reading any of my articles?
Did I just choose a niche that sucks this much?
I got a domain name and hosting just like they told me in the blog posts that I read about blogging. But what else didn’t I do?
These were the kinds of questions that were racing in my head.
But then in the second month things started changing. I noticed a spike in my traffic.
People were beginning to care more and more about what I was writing about. People started even engaging with my blog posts in terms of comments.
Just like any entrepreneur would tell you, no one ever started a business and it immediately took off.
And if there is one who told you that he did it, the fact is, he is lying to you.
It takes time for anything to grow into its full potential.
If you need any proof on this, just read background history of A-list companies and the struggles that they had when they were starting out.
A good example is coca cola. They only sold 25 bottles in their first year.
And today coca cola drinks are consumed at the rate of more than 1.9 billion drinks per day.
You need to offer value, that is, solve REAL problems
I am yet to find an established entrepreneur who flourished upon not solving a problem.
Look at the major companies:
- Facebook thrived because it managed to solve the problem of connecting people who are far away from one another at a cost that is next to zero.
- Microsoft thrived upon bringing an operating system that is easy to use.
- Google solved the problem of finding information online.
Every entrepreneurial venture out there no matter how small it is, thrives on providing value and hence solving a problem.
Blogging is no different.
If a blog is destined to be great, it must have a specific problem that it is solving.
A good example is this blog. This blog solves problems that non-experienced bloggers, writers and online entrepreneurs face in their careers.
In short, it is offering value to its users in an effective way.
If you just start a blog just for the sake of it, I assure you that you will not get that far with your blog.
Sure, people may get curious once in a while and decide to check out your blog.
But once they realize that there is no value to be gotten from your blog, they won’t be coming back.
You have to invest if you want anything out of it
Ever heard an entrepreneur who went into business investing exactly 0.00$ in startup capital?
No?
Neither did I.
Consequently, that is the reason I just cringe when I browse twitter profiles when I want to connect with bloggers and then just find whatever link they have provided to their blog is a wordpress.com or blogspot.com link.
I said it before and I will say it once more. You are not a blogger if you don’t own your blog. It is that simple.
You can never blog on a free bog and expect to make big bucks.
No!
Just can’t happen.
One more thing, you can get kicked out of your blog any time.
And why is that?
I am glad you asked.
Here’s why: It’s like living in someone’s house rent free.
Would you say anything when the owner of the house just wakes up one day decides to kick you out without providing a reason as to why he or she decided to do so?
It requires discipline
For entrepreneurs to keep their business afloat, they show up every single day and put in the work.
Now, it does not matter whether they fought the whole night with their wife or they were in a meeting the whole night with some investors from Dubai.
This is what I call discipline.
If you want to move ahead in your blogging career, you have to show up every single time and put in the work.
You have to create a schedule and stick with it. Use a WordPress calendar plugin if need be. But just make sure you do what has to be done.
It’s okay for superheroes in the Marvels movies to disappear for years and then show up out of nowhere and still be superheroes.
It’s not okay for you to disappear from your blog for years and not post anything and then just show up and think that you can still rock the blogging world.
Nope.
Just doesn’t work like that. This is blogging and it’s in the real world not in a fantasy movie world.
You must earn your reader’s trust
Trust.
One word that can cripple a whole business empire.
Imagine what would happen if people just lacked trust in apple and its products.
Due to that the whole empire would come down crumbling to the ground.
Because where would they then sell their products? They can’t sell to animals you know.
That goes to blogging too.
If you keep on publishing content that proves to be bullshit to your readers, these readers will totally lack trust in you.
Do you know what happens next? Your blog has exactly zero traffic.
And, can you actually build a blogging business with zero traffic?
Well, good luck with that.
Closing word
From the above tips, it is totally clear that blogging and entrepreneurship are totally comparable.
If they don’t actually coin the name blogpreneur I will coin it myself.
Got anything to add to this blog post or just an honest comment?
I welcome you to leave these in the comments below.
Also please make sure you share this post. Let the knowledge spread like wild fire! Cheers!
Hey guys, my name is Mathenge Maina and I am the person behind the blog mathengewrites.com where I write articles that help bloggers and writers level up in their careers. I am that coffee addict who by day is trying to figure out what chemical engineering is all about while by night I am writing for bloggers and writers. By the way am on twitter: @mathengemaina1
