One year on…

A year ago today I published “Saying Goodbye to Zealify -Lessons Learned”. I wanted to take some time to reflect on what has changed within that year and what I’ve learned about myself in that time.
After closing Zealify I was incredibly unsure what my next steps looked like. From a young age I’d always dreamt of being a founder and creating my own destiny. What could ever compare to my lifelong dream?
This is not a prescription to feel better if you’re going through the same but it outlines how I got back to feeling somewhat ‘normal’.
You need to take time to reflect. This was one of the most important things I did. I took a few months off after Zealify to recuperate, reflect and talk to as many people as possible. I could have dived into another job immediately but I knew it would never have been a role I could be truly passionate about or able to sustain. It took talking to as many people as possible to discover my current role that gave me excitement and passion once again. It’s a very different passion than I previously had for my business but it’s one I didn’t know existed inside of me. It will come to you, there’s no need to rush.
You’re not over it. I strongly believed that I had come to terms with closing the company but it wasn’t until I took my first holiday post-Zealify that I realised I still missed everything we’d built. Being the founder and CEO I still felt immense guilt for letting down our team, our clients, our investors and our candidates, in my mind I still felt it was my responsibility that we failed. Acknowledging I felt that way was a huge step and a massive relief, I’d written about all the reasons we’d closed down but I never said how I really felt; “it’s my fault”. Having that moment of honesty with myself made it easier for me to talk with other ex-founders about how to come to terms with that. I realised we all felt that guilt and talking about it helped us to deal with that (sometimes irrational) emotion.
It’s okay to not be okay. I’ve always been a very honest person, sometimes to my own detriment(!), but as time passed I felt increasing pressure to tell people I was fine, happy even. This definitely contributed to not acknowledging that I wasn’t okay. Remember they’re is no time limit on grief so allow yourself to take as long as you need.
You will find your passion again. While running Zealify I also ran a project called Female Founder Fridays. For the past year I’ve been telling people I’m going to relaunch the blog and start interviewing female founders once again. The truth was every time I sat down to strategise I found it too difficult to think of interviewing successful female founders to see everything I wouldn’t be. Thankfully working everyday with some incredible female role models helped me gradually accept that it’s okay that I’m not that person right now but I can still learn so much from these people. Just because things didn’t follow your plan doesn’t mean you can never be passionate or excited about the same things again.
People don’t think you’ve failed, only you do. After Zealify closed I was inconsolable that I’d failed at my lifelong dream. Every time I expressed that sentiment to my friends, colleagues or peers they would look at me with incredible confusion. They saw everything I couldn’t see at that moment; we’d built a company that had ran for 3 years, generated revenue, helped people find jobs the love and profiled some of the most incredible companies. I couldn’t understand how they could see what we’d done as a success yet over and over they would tell me so. I began to realise that although we hadn’t succeeded in the end it didn’t mean we weren’t a success throughout the journey. Running Zealify changed my entire life and many others for the better, whether we succeeded or not. I wouldn’t have been able to do what I do now without the experience I’d had with Zealify.
You can just be normal for a while. For a long time I’ve believed that everyday you should be making an impact, whether in your own life or others. I shouldn’t be sitting in front of the TV, I should be writing a blog. I shouldn’t be going for drinks, I should be building my next product. After 4 years building businesses and dedicating 100% of my time to doing so adjusting to ‘free time’ was immensely difficult. Every weekend I wasn’t working I felt I lacked purpose or focus, I felt I was wasting my life away. The reality was I needed to just do nothing for a while to enjoy my friends, family and just appreciate the great life I have. This doesn’t mean I won’t be throwing myself back into different projects but it does mean I’ve learned that I can just enjoy life sometimes and not feel I’m wasting my whole life away!
Everything you learned is still valuable. After closing the company, people still came to me for career advice (Zealify was a recruitment-tech company) and I couldn’t find it in myself to take the meetings. How could my advice be valuable when the business hadn’t succeeded? After several months, I agreed to do my friend a favour and took one meeting. From some of my advice, recommendations and introductions that person found their new challenge. Taking that leap and ignoring that voice in my head was the step I needed to rebuild my confidence. Just because we didn’t succeed didn’t mean that I had no value to add or that I hadn’t learned anything.

Through all of these emotions and changes I was fortunate enough to find a new role that makes me feel like I have an impact every single day. I now manage global operations for Techstars Startup Weekend, a community of the most inspiring, engaging people who are dedicated to inspiring entrepreneurship across the world.
It might have taken a little longer than I expected but I’m finally feeling myself again. Ready to tackle the exciting challenges ahead within Techstars and feeling incredibly privileged to have had the opportunities I’ve had.
If you’re going through this right now just remember you’re not alone and this is just another phase in your exciting adventure (even if it doesn’t feel like it right now). It might not be what you wanted or planned but that doesn’t mean you’ll enjoy it any less. Allow yourself to not be okay, to just be normal for a while but don’t ever doubt your passion, all you learned or the value you bring. Starting a business is a brutal, exhausting, sometimes depressing yet unparalleled experience and nothing can ever take that away from you. Even if you didn’t succeed this time just starting is a success.
