Reflections on a startup failure!

I still remember Amit saying it is happening too easily maybe due to our desperation to start it but I convinced him that it seems right to me intuitionally. It was around a month before we started FC (FreshConnect). There were definitely individual strengths in both of us which gave us the confidence that we can do it but we were both blinded by the weaknesses when we were starting up. For instance, I always tried too hard to prove my worth (maybe due to my insecurities) & that led to a series of wrong decisions which cost us a lot. We also realized that we don’t have a good co-founder fit at a later stage in our journey. One of the reasons for this was that our value systems were very different which I knew was very important theoretically but never had any experience of tackling consequences of value-system mismatch (like breakups etc.) in my life till this point. It all started with small disagreements which escalated to larger conflicts with time. Few of these conflicts also helped me grow as an individual.

Most of our growth happens outside our comfort zone or when we face our fears.

There were red flags initially like he told me to not participate in tech discussions since I asked too many questions and others but I always tried to make it work by leaving tech completely to him until he asked me to get involved.

Most common reason for startup failure is co-founder conflicts and the most common reason for conflicts is EGOs in individuals.

I think he always used to underestimate me and I tried too hard to prove him wrong. This internal tussle was unhealthy for us as well as the company. He has also hired few people in tech prior to me joining as co-founder and that had a huge consequence in the success of our company later on as we couldn’t meet deadlines of the tech product. I wouldn’t have done any better but since we both were first time founders and bound to make mistakes but I depended completely on someone else’s decision and that just eats me up sometimes.

One should evaluate thoroughly on what he/she is getting into specially in long term commitments like a startup with someone.

I led the launch of our pilot with the help of a launchpad. I helped us get into it but we never gave credit to each other for what we did. Its an uphill task for anyone to build something from scratch in entrepreneurship and its important for the founders to keep the spirits up by giving recognition to team members by giving them credit and celebrating small successes.

Among all the things I got burned out multiple times and realized the importance of self preservation very late in the journey. One more reason for this was my need for seeking outside validation from other people and it’s not humanly possible to please everyone at the end of the day.

Everyone is not thinking about you or judging you-something I realized at the lowest point in my journey and it liberated me.

We also made a huge hiring blunder (in hindsight obviously) very early by hiring a stranger through social media who was 10 yrs older to us and we didn’t know anything about. He was good at work (sales & BD) but was not a culture fit with our team.

Culture fit/ Value fit>>>>>Skill/Competency fit in startups as everyone is learning on the job anyway.

We both co founders were very bad at confrontation where Amit was too rational not keeping other’s feelings in mind and I was too empathetic and thought too much about others feelings and couldn’t share objective feedback. All this series of events led to a lot of self doubt in me and eventually depression when my co-founder was on a break. Initially I didn’t realize that it’s depression what I am dealing with as we don’t have much awareness about mental health in our society and everything is categorized as stress. It was horrible: I was unable to sleep for one straight week avoiding contact with other people & in a loop of pessimism where I thought everything was falling apart worth living for. It was one of the lowest moments in my life and the worst part was that people near didn’t understand me well to help me in any way and on top of that, I was responsible for running an early stage company with 10 employees with no money. That responsibility kept me from quitting and I got stuck in a loop. My co-founder was in his hometown and with my confused state of mind I took the courage to call him and tell him about it. His response was ‘Fighter bano yaar’ or ‘Be stronger’ and that’s another mental health problem where others don’t understand that telling them to be stronger doesn’t work. I was in a mindset of slippery slope as I was trying hard to make good decisions as a promoter of my startup and the harder I was trying, the situation was getting worse. Even reaching out to a therapist was also not working as there was no compatibility among us {Huge problem in mental health space}. Soon things started to go really out of hand and Amit came back from his home. I was not able to contribute any meaningful work with my mental state and I was not able to withdraw as well due to my perceived responsibility. Eventually my teammates understood this and pushed me to take a break. I did that and with the help of my mentor I started becoming better again. I felt there were consequences of this situation on the team’s motivation and I took the full responsibility for it afterwards. I never felt more energetic to work & went on a routine with healthy habits & enrolled for dance classes to tune myself out from the chaos of the startup for a while to keep my peace of mind. At this moment, I started feeling that everything is getting better & the dark days are behind us. I also took a trip with a few teammates to rejuvenate and to get out of the monotony of work. I thought this was the chance to reconnect with them again. We had a great time together and when we came back, I took hold of finances again. I realized that we are very close to running out of money. We already had a few angel investors who were interested to invest in us but none of them wanted to lead the round.

Always be closing: Realized this when it was too late & we ran out of money.

I took a major part of my focus in fundraising as it became a bottleneck for survival of the company. We again came back to routine where we started having regular meetings and I started thinking that everything is going great again. But I was only seeing one part of reality. The wounds were far from healed and the team’s productivity (or motivation) was not back to normal and I didn’t blame them. I kept working with as much productivity as I could and suppressing my emotions if I had any.

Team’s productivity is more important than leader’s in the early stage and it’s very difficult to come in sync once they get out of track.

This was also the time when my co-founder was going through some emotional turbulence and I decided to focus on fundraising rather than emotionally supporting him { One reason was that he was emotionally distant & wanted our relationship to be completely professional although we used to live 6 days a week in the same apartment}. This was also because I thought once we close the fundraising, it will boost everyone’s morale {Big mistake that I thought of company and people as separate entities}. Around this time a senior from college also joined us & from what I have heard about him so far, I thought he will be a blessing in disguise and will get back the energy of our team. I didn’t know that it would backfire as he was not in great mental health and after multiple failed attempts at UPSC, was looking for a job to support him. Ironically, it was like two drowning persons found each other’s support and their combined weight led to faster death. These guys started smoking up & drinking & created a very depressed environment at a critical point in the company. Then we got hit by the news that one of the angel investors had denied investing in our company due to personal reasons and this was the last thing we needed. After a few days of this news, my co-founder lost his balance and started getting distracted by other personal things. I put all my focus on work and didn’t focus on what’s going on with him. We asked him to take a break and come back with a better state of mind but he didn’t listen and when things went too far out of hand (like him physically hurting himself) we asked his family to take him. They listened and he went back home. After a few days I got a call from Amit that he doesn’t want to continue and I should also decide fast on what I want to do. Everything started coming down all of a sudden as the last support I had got lost. All the effort that we had put & the sacrifices we (including our families) made for more than 18 months is going to become nothing soon. At that moment I could really empathize with failed co-founders and started getting genuine appreciation for those who bounced back from these failures. This was the time I started looking for M&A options & cutting down operations at the same time as I knew that it will be very difficult to survive even 1 more month but nothing worked out in the times of desperation. And then one more of our team member quit soon after but still with my irrational optimism, I kept going looking for that single ray of hope that will bring us out of this situation. In these times, after giving my best I used to go in my virtual shell where I used to feel a bit secure. After a few weeks my co-founder came back and got our team acquired by another company Citymandi with a promise that they will take our liabilities in pending payments of vendors & a small loan that we took just a few months back. Although it was the need of the hour, I felt cheated as he didn’t even care to tell me and the other reason was that we hated the founder of other company and we knew that the culture he have built is not right for our team {Eventually our team quit that company after getting fed up from bad culture and when they didn’t pay their salary for more than 3 months}. I got to know about from a ops team member who just signed an offer letter with the new company and was confused on why I was being kept in dark. I was furious for a moment and then I realized that it’s not about me. Our team deserved a good stable job after so much hard work and it was the only way they were getting that in the situation. I also started working on wrapping operations & closing on my next job {as there was a lot of pressure from my family too. After losing all my savings in the startup, they wanted me to stand back on my legs again}. I already had an offer from one of the prospect angel investors in our company and after a few rejections I decided I don’t have any energy left to do this anymore & needs stability for now and joined StackBOX as PM. Next few months went in transferring data to the acquirer company and clearing off the vendor payments. Initially Amit joined them as part of the deal and soon left for another job at Policy Bazaar as senior product analyst.

After a lot of learning and hell of a roller-coaster journey, we started looking for what’s ahead of us.

Other Reflections:
> My co-founder also had huge issues with us going back to the drawing board and reassessing our model as I was always questioning whether we are going in the right direction with losing money month on month.

> I failed at drafting the right payment policy for customers with fast iterations and got stuck in making it perfect for too long

> I didn’t like documenting anything and my co-founder rightly pointed out the importance of it numerous times.