IN THE BEGINNING
Starting any thing new and worthwhile is never easy and definitely not glamorous at the beginning.
The days will be long and the nights will be longer but the rewards will be worth the journey for those with goods to deliver at the final destination.
If you spend the bulk of your time articulating and delivering on your confirmed/clarified brand identity, your own people will gravitate towards you eventually.
SURVIVE
Don't waste your time trying to convince people who hate you for even daring to try, that you're worth a second look. Your early adopters will be few and far flung, so you will need all of your meagre resources to search them out and deliver on your brand promise. Those who achieve this, early on are the survivors of the start-up ecosystem.
Survival is the name of the game at the onset, so you must choose your poison wisely, there are no sweet chalice been distributed in Adullam. Eliminate your detractor population quickly, identify your potential niche early then serve, serve and serve them until they become evangelists.
PROGRESS
Thank God for little mercies. You must be comfortable in your own skin. Don't seek or expect validation from industry experts/veterans. They mostly loathe what you stand for(not all of them). So be content to encourage and praise yourself using the narrow definition of progress you determine early on.
Perfection is your enemy in that lonely cave, so you must not give it a second of your time. Go with good enough, perfect will meet you along the way cause if you don't ship and keep shipping, the lights will be out before you even start. So do everything to survive, so you can thrive.
IT IS EASIER THAN IT APPEARS
There are almost eight (8) billion people in this world. Trust me, if your purpose is clear and your resolve is strong, you will perform wonders with the goodwill of just 0.000001% of that number.
If your audience/customer definition is done correctly at the very beginning and fine-tuned with constancy, you will find out, that you do not need to capture the whole world, just enough discontented people to start your revolution.
As you pour your little oil into that borrowed squad, it will become a platoon, then a company until you grow into a mighty army. Pretty soon, the world will feel the heat of your passion and the ensuing wildfire will be unquenchable.