The early years were extremely rough. At one point, a factory in China that I was dying to work with told me they didn't want to work with me and I contemplated suicide. In retrospect that seems really dumb, but at the time, it felt like a disaster.

So the answer to your question is: it's really hard to start a business without venture capital because everyone looks down on you and when you don't get immediate sales success it's really depressing, but you have to KEEP FIGHTING!

The easiest part of building a business? The few times I got lucky.

You're going to get lucky if you keep doing something for a really long time. The key is to recognize when you've gotten lucky and then to commit effort and energy to taking advantage of that moment, but in general, building a business is never easy. It's constant headaches and stress.