Most business start-ups fail. That’s what they tell me.

There’s only one reason I’m still in business—it’s surely not because of me. If it were my decision, I would have given up long ago.

I had this crazy idea to quit my job and start my own business offering a service where people hire me to negotiate their car buying deal. The plan was to charge them a fee outside the deal so I could actually have their best interests in mind—this would work similarly to a realtor, but for cars.

Yeah, that was the plan but here’s the problem: no one knew this service existed, let alone why they should care. And long story short, the phone never rang.

It took me and my wife six months of working and anxiously waiting before we got our first paying client.

In those six months, I tried to give up 100 times.

Our friends weren’t even using us. (Nothing against them—they didn’t even know what I was doing.)

Fortunately, my wife would not allow me to give up.

She would remind me of God’s promise. I would try to convince her to let me go back to the dealership where I had previously earned a consistent living. After all, she could then quit her job and I would be the breadwinner! I tried to sell her on letting me quit, but she wasn’t buying it. I still remember her words:

“Michael, you are not going back. Did God call you to do this?”

She would say, “Faith is greater than fear.” So, I kept on plowing ahead and learning to market a business online.

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Our website?  She built that.

Our blog posts? Her.

I barely graduated high school. Don’t get me wrong—I’m awesome with numbers, but don’t ask me where commas go. I’m known for run-on sentences.

She did all this while raising two kids and working a full-time job.

She also did all this while her husband tried to give up.

God blessed me with the greatest wife.

She is better than anything I could imagine. Without her, I would never have experienced this.

What wife encourages her husband even though he doesn’t have a proven, solid plan?

People now find us online and hire us. We recently hired our first employee and have plans to hire more.

We created something out of nothing.

We are seeing God’s promises come to fruition.

I’m thankful my wife wouldn’t let me give up! She is the reason we are still in business.

In faith,
Mike

This post originally appeared on the author’s blog.