Taking the scenic route

Embracing failure as a new beginning

Two years ago today, I sent the above tweet.

3 months later, I actually did quit my job to try build the next LinkedIn.

I left behind my dream of living in New York City (including the 6 figure salary and my perfect Brooklyn Heights apartment to boot) to move back to the UK, with no money and no team, to make it happen. Looking back now, I’m pretty blown away by what I’ve achieved in 18 months.

I’ve built a product that’s helped 3000 people make over 12k connections in 423 cities around the world. A product that’s been celebrated by Apple (twice!) and Product Hunt. A product that people LOVE (because they tell me all the time!). I’ve attracted amazing angel investors from Europe and the US to back me when we had next to nothing. I’ve convinced amazing talented people to be part of what we’re building.

But most importantly for me, I’ve laid the foundations for a company with authentic progressive values, a social mission, and have operated with absolute integrity in alignment with them both.

And that’s what makes today so tough.

Because today is the day I’ve decided to push pause on building this company.

Back at the start of March, I kicked off fundraising for our first institutional round of funding. Metrics were nowhere near what was needed, but I deeply believed in my ability to sell the vision for rebuilding ‘the global operating system of social capital’. I’d managed to line up a total of 90 investor conversations, both in the US and Europe, and was ready to get to work.

Fast forward to 7 weeks later, and we’ve still not had a single commitment. Other than a bunch of folks ‘ready to follow’, no-one has had the conviction to back what we’re building. Ouch.

So why no commitments?

• No traction. The combination of moving at part time speed (no full time engineers), and refusing to use growth hacking techniques, meant our graphs weren’t really up and to the right. I really thought it might be enough to get a few people excited. Sadly not.
• Concerns on market size. People agree the product is needed, but do have concerns as to whether this is a venture-backed-company-sorta-size market.
• Bias toward a part time team. Andrea our tech director has a full time job at the moment. A job he needs to support his young family. I’ve had many conversations with investors who see this as ‘not fully committed’, as apposed to ‘not having the privilege of flexibility’, sadly.
• My ‘investability’ as a founder. That’s a real word, right? Anyway, as a sole, first-time, non-technical (fuck me I hate that term with a passion) founder, it was always going to be an uphill battle to get a tech company off the ground.

But is that the end of the world? Well…

• The company is almost out of cash. Assuming no salaries or contractor fees, there is enough in the bank to keep the product alive for another 3–4 months. I certainly don’t want it to just die, so want to do what I can to keep it in the app store and available to use.
• I’m personally broke. I’ve had to stop paying myself (my £600 a month salary) and have hit my overdraft limit. I’m done borrowing from friends and family and I can’t get credit. I literally cannot afford to feed myself anymore.
• I’m physically, emotionally and mentally bankrupt. I’ve never felt worse in all my life if I’m honest. I’ve wrecked my back sitting on shit chairs for 18 months, my anxiety is going bananas, which has in turn triggered both IBS and psoriasis. The route I’m taking just isn’t going to be sustainable for me as a human, never mind a company.
• We were issued a cease and desist by <redacted till cleared>. That was the unexpected nail in the coffin. It seems our rebrand conflicts with a few of their trademarks, and we don’t have the time, money or energy to fight it. So for this next phase at least, we will be reviving the Ping brand.

So what now?

• I’m going back to work. Time to rejoin society and get a proper job again. A chance to drag my arse out of financial ruin, make me feel a bit better about myself and my life, and give me something new to apply my brain to for a bit. But something that provides me with flexibility to…
• I’ll carry on work on Ping part time. The company might be put on hold, but the product won’t be. I still love and believe in the product, and thus when I’m able to (both time and money dictating), I will still evolve it however I can.

I’ve always been open about the fact that I’ve never been totally clear on my motivations for building a company. I spent a tonne of time in therapy trying to work it out too. But there have been two driving forces that were always clear.

1. I’m building something that I believe with every inch of my soul needs to exist and something I could spend the next ten years building.
2. I wanted, and am absolutely getting, a deep and profound learning experience.

Building and learning are two of the most rewarding states I can imagine, and consider it a privilege that I’ve had the opportunity to wake up every day and experience both in such a meaningful way.

This has been the only thing I’ve thought about and cared about for a really long time. The idea of not doing that every day still feels alien right now. I need some time to reflect on the past 18 months and get my shit back together. I need to take some time to identify a more sustainable way forward, and a way that allows me to prioritise my health.

I cannot even begin to describe how grateful I am to my friends, family, investors, collaborators and advisors who have helped me get this far. I really hope this isn’t the end and that I can repay your faith and energy in the not so distant future.

I will leave you with a quote from one of my favourite books — ‘A Short Life Well Lived’ by TV exec Peter Barton, who faced with terminal illness wrote about his philosophy on life. One of his two most important life lessons:

Understand when you need to change direction, and then have the guts to do so