The lure of starting a business appeals to many people, but few make the leap. The gap between wanting and doing is not a lack of ideas or opportunity; it is fear. Specifically, the fear of not knowing where the next paycheck comes from. Joey Arakanchi knows that feeling precisely. The day he started his business, his email inbox, which had held hundreds of messages, dropped to zero. Every relationship, every contact, every source of incoming work had to be rebuilt from scratch. That reset is what entrepreneurship actually looks like at the start, and Arakanchi’s view on what it takes to survive it and build something lasting is grounded in having done exactly that. “You really have to have thick skin,” Arakanchi reflects. “The fear of not knowing will deter anybody from starting a business.”
Handle Every Problem Head-On. Never Turn Back
The early stage of any business produces more questions than answers, and the instinct under that pressure is to second-guess the decision to start. Arakanchi’s response to every early challenge is to handle it, fix it, and move forward. A vendor mistake, an unhappy customer, and an operational gap were each resolved as quickly as possible and left behind. The philosophy was not to eliminate problems but to refuse to let them become reasons to quit.
That approach demands a particular kind of resolve that most business schools do not teach. Entrepreneurs who succeed in the early years are not the ones who avoid difficulty. They are the ones who treat each difficulty as a discrete problem to be solved rather than evidence that the venture was wrong. “I don’t know if I ever thought of just turning back,” Arakanchi notes. “I just handled the situation as it came about.” Over months, that posture is what separates businesses that survive their first year from those that do not.
Accept the Loss Year. Protect the Customer Relationship
The tariff volatility of 2026 created a specific and difficult test for businesses with overseas sourcing. Amounts fluctuated throughout the year, making it nearly impossible to reliably incorporate tariff costs into product pricing. Arakanchi’s response to that environment offers a broader lesson about how resilient businesses approach short-term pain.
When tariffs rendered certain orders unprofitable, the temptation was to turn them away. Arakanchi did the opposite. The moment an order is rejected, a competitor is ready to absorb that customer. Protecting the relationship, even at a loss, keeps the business intact for when conditions stabilize. “Maybe this year is a loss year,” he observes. “But if you decide to turn away orders, someone else is ready to scoop up that business.” Tariffs eventually leveled out. The customers who were retained during the difficult months were still there when margins recovered.
Wear Every Hat. Build Every Skill. Give It Time
A common failure mode in entrepreneurship is entering with deep expertise in one or two areas, and underestimating everything else a functioning business requires. Product knowledge and sales ability are a starting point, not a complete picture. Supply chain, operations, logistics, accounts receivable, and collections – these are all areas that can sink a business if left unattended, regardless of how strong the product or the relationships are.
Arakanchi is clear that building competency across these domains takes time – perhaps one to three years– and that this is entirely acceptable. The expectation that a business should be fully formed and profitable immediately is one of the most damaging misconceptions in entrepreneurship.
Failing to adopt any technology puts a business definitively behind, but indiscriminate adoption of every new tool is impractical. Adaptability and selective adoption are what matter. All of it – the patience, the breadth, the willingness to take a loss and keep moving – adds up to the same thing. Entrepreneurship is not built in a day. It is built through attention to every detail across every part of the business over time.
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