The Thursday I Almost Gave Up — And What Saved Me

For weeks, I had been working on a side project — a digital product I believed in with all my heart. It was more than just a business idea. It was something I cared deeply about, something that had grown out of a personal passion. Every night, after coming home from my regular 9–5 job, I’d make dinner, open my laptop, and dive in. I’d stay up late tweaking designs, writing copy, learning new tools. My weekends were sacrificed. I missed friends' birthdays, canceled movie plans, and turned down trips just to give this thing a real shot.

But despite all that effort, the numbers weren’t promising. I had launched it quietly — I wasn’t confident enough to announce it loudly — and it barely made a ripple. A few visitors, no signups, no sales. Just silence. Deafening, disheartening silence.

I tried to tell myself it was part of the process. That early days are tough. That many successful people start the same way — with struggle, failure, crickets. But it’s one thing to know that and another to feel it every day. It’s another thing to pour your energy into something only to see it go nowhere.

I remember sitting at my desk that Thursday evening, exhausted, my eyes glazed over from staring at analytics that hadn’t moved in days. I felt like an imposter. “Maybe I’m not cut out for this,” I told myself. Maybe I had misunderstood my abilities. Maybe this whole idea of building something on the side was just a fantasy.

The self-doubt was overwhelming. It was a storm in my head.

So I closed the laptop. Got up. Walked to the window and stared outside for a while. I told myself I’d sleep on it — but deep down, I already knew what I was going to do. Tomorrow, I’d write an email to my tiny newsletter list, thanking them for following along… and telling them I was done. That I had tried. That it hadn’t worked.

But then, just before I went to bed, something small happened. Something random. Something that didn’t look like a “turning point,” but ended up becoming exactly that.

An old college friend messaged me out of the blue. We hadn’t spoken in over a year. The message was short. Just a few words.

> “Hey, I saw your project online. Just wanted to say it’s awesome. Keep going. Seriously.”

That was it.

No deep advice. No strategic tips. Just encouragement. Pure and simple.

But those words hit me hard. I stared at my phone for several minutes, reading it over and over again. I didn’t know he even knew about the project. I didn’t know anyone noticed. And yet, here he was — a voice in the dark saying, “Keep going.”

That one message didn’t magically solve all my problems. It didn’t bring thousands of visitors or land me a viral tweet. But it lit a small fire again. It reminded me that someone saw me. That my work meant something, even if just to one person.

I went to bed that night with tears in my eyes. Not from defeat this time, but from a flicker of hope. A tiny reminder that the story wasn’t over yet.

The next morning, instead of writing a goodbye email, I made a list of three small things I could do to improve the project — nothing massive, just small tweaks. I did those things. Then I did three more. I kept going.

Weeks turned into months. Eventually, things began to shift. Not quickly, but steadily. I got my first customer. Then another. Then a small feature in a blog. People began to share it. Slowly, that side project grew into something real.