Why I decided to quit my startup

Today I wrote a message to my team saying I was going to quit Milo. I want to be really honest about it, I think I’m not ready to be a founder with a vision that at the same time leads a team. Here are the things that I’ve learned about myself and that lead to this decision.

Previously on “Julia’s Startup Life’

Last November, I set up a website, trying to test whether there would be demand in Vienna for an errand-running service. I did it alone, because I wanted to see what I needed in a team that I didn’t have.

Now, it’s February and we realized that in fact the market wasn’t big enough. So the team I had acquired by then(3 full-time, 3 part-time) was amazing and we were brainstorming all kinds of ways to pivot. What I realized over the course of last week is that I’m actually not ready to be a founder at all.

What I am still missing

• Knowledge: If you don’t know much about what you’re doing, you need to try a lot, that costs a heck lot of energy.
• Motivation: I am not incredibly motivated about building a startup in Vienna, because it is my longterm goal to move to the USA. I wasn’t lying awake in bed with ideas going through my head and excitement making my heart race for much longer than 2 weeks. After that, I was only afraid to fail.
• Stamina: If it isn’t your biggest wish at the moment to build this very startup, then it’s always a struggle. If there is one thing that I took away from last week’s FuckUp Night Vienna Vol.#2, then it is to be authentic. And honestly, it’s not really about my stamina, but more about the fact that I don’t think this is going to work here and now.

If you know, something isn’t going to work, then it’s actually not about stamina, but about being honest.

The trigger

For me, things go up and down all the time. As things change, so does my mind. I had been looking for someone to take over Milo for some weeks and I had actually found someone. On Friday, that someone told me they weren’t gonna do it. So now, on Sunday, I had to pull the break on this and be honest with myself and my team. I know I’m not the founder who takes this startup to where it needs to be, so I need to just let it go.

Other things I’ve learned on the way

I will definitely be writing about some bigger lessons I learned in those three and something months, but here are some of them:

• Everybody in your team needs to know that startups are completely different from classic businesses where you know the business model, the market etc.
• Your startup needs to be putting something about your life purpose to work. You need your startup to be the reason you get out of bed in the morning, and nothing other than that. It is true that startup life means breathing, sleeping, eating and shitting startup. So it better be something you are absolutely passionate about.

I am a great hustler, until it’s my own startup.

• Talking to other people and sharing your idea isn’t bad at all. There is no need to fear that people will take your idea from you, because more often than not I have gotten fantastic advice and customers by telling someone what Milo does.
• Failure is great. Accept what it is and don’t fear what others will think of you. Take for example my tax adviser, who will ask me if I’m nuts when I tell her that this is my third business idea that will not grow older than a few months. I could either be afraid of telling her the news, or I could realize that everytime I had a business idea, I learned a great big deal about startup-ing and started differently each time. Iterations are a common thing in agile development, so I don’t feel bad about iterating founding a startup and ‘pivoting’ in between, if you will.
• Do things before you are ready. Stuff takes long enough on its own, like the building of a new website, or finding a great team, or getting people to use your service and give you feedback. If you know that things will be necessary sometime in the future, start them now.

Conclusion

There’s no need to mention again how many times Thomas Edison attempted to invent the light bulb, or ask, what would have happened if Michael Jordan had quit before his break-through. I guess I’m just getting on the way of having to fail a couple of times before getting it right. But believe you me, I’m as ready as can be.

Hopefully this helped you in some way or gave you more insight into my decision. Startup battles are fought every day and I need to thank Andreas Mahringer at this point for getting this Medium started and asking me to share my experiences. Cheers, Andreas!

And one more announcement: Because we know, that many are going through the same stuff (pre-startup and during startup), my boyfriend Thomas Kozlowski (timelack.com, zum-lachenden-mitarbeiter.at) and I have decided to start an NGO that is called Pep Talk Masters (peptalks.io). We know what it’s like to be stuck and we know how to kick butts gently to get you going again.

If you feel like getting in contact with me, just shoot me an email to julia@haitzmann.cc or come talk to me at one of the many startup events I attend (I’m a huge networker). I love sharing experiences. Also, I am looking for a job in Silicon Valley right now ☺