Three small companies
Before I worked in crypto, I tried three small companies. None became a lasting company. Each did enough business to make the work real.
Adware sold ads on paper cups. A cafe received cups. A brand paid to place an ad on them. We printed and distributed cups and made revenue from the campaigns. The work included finding brands, finding places that would use the cups, printing the right quantity, and getting them there.
CodeCrafts was a medical technology company I started in college. The product was HIPAA-compliant. We reached about USD 200,000 in annual recurring revenue. The job mixed outreach, scoping, development, and delivery. A sale created work with a date and a client on the other side.
SquareFeet worked on student housing. We listed and helped manage a small number of properties. The work was local: speak with property owners, find tenants, answer questions, and help the two sides complete a rental.
The three businesses looked unrelated: ads, software, and housing. The common part was less grand. Someone had to find a customer, describe the work, do it, collect the money, and handle what went wrong.
This is not a claim that the attempts were large successes. They were small, and they ended. Their value was that the loop was complete. We had to move from an idea to a customer and then live with the work created by the sale.