The Soul of an Entrepreneur

What Should a Good Company Embody?

When you’re about to start a business, you’ll hear a lot of people say: “It can’t be done.”

“You can’t do it without capital.” “You can’t do it without connections.”

But that’s not true. You can do it without capital. I’ve never borrowed money from a bank. To be precise, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. I had no collateral, no savings, nothing to my name. I wasn’t working at a prestigious company, either. Banks only lend money to people who already have something. That’s why I wanted to build a business independent of banks. I wanted to start something that didn’t require a loan, and that could never fall into a loss. I built my company by earning every penny myself — from the initial capital to operating expenses. I raised the company without a single cent of borrowed money.

And you can do it without connections. There’s an old saying I really like:

“Even a beauty hidden away in a back room will be found.”

We’re not living in an era where business is done over drinks and dinners anymore. Some people still do it that way, but I don’t. I’ve never once landed a deal by entertaining clients with alcohol or meals. Some people found me through word of mouth, but the majority came because they read my writing and resonated with what I stand for. The network I’ve built is made up of people who share my values, not people I sought out for the sake of business.

I’m not the only one who built a business without capital or connections. Most of the CEOs I’ve met over the past few years, regardless of age, started with nothing but took one step at a time. These are not people whose families handed them millions to start a business. They poured their days and nights into it, sacrificed their youth, worked diligently every single day, and overcame countless struggles and conflicts to build their companies.

It’s the entrepreneur’s passion and diligence that give birth to a company. Yes, capital is like oxygen to a business, and connections help you recruit talent and ease the path forward. But you cannot build a real company on those things alone. You might be able to build a shell of a company with money, but a business with life — one that breathes — must have the soul of its founder embedded in it. If a company that started with zero capital manages to change the world, behind it you’ll find a founder who nurtured it like a parent — sacrificing everything with love and dedication.