Why I Stopped Pursuing My 1st Startup Idea
Local Spoon i̶s̶ was an exclusive food members club for the digital age. Members had access to a curated engine of offers from fine dining to foodie events in exchange for highly engaging content.
We started with some ambitious plans and bold statements like any other startup would.
We wanted to reimagine the way we discover and experience our world from restaurants to food markets, events and other tasty experiences; to save you time, elevate your dining experience and to never have to pull out a card to pay for your next meal.
After 18 months of ups and downs, I decided to shut down the servers and put this business to rest. It took me a few weeks to sleep on it. I have invested quite a lot in this endeavor and I wasn’t ready to fail. I tried to delay this decision as much as I could. It’s been just another fallacy. Let’s add this one to the pile of “learnings” I will be talking about later in the article.
Learning #1 — Feasibility — Were we able to execute the critical success factors to make the business work?
I’m the founder of a tech startup and no, I don’t code. I know my forte, and equally, I know my limitations. Creating technology without ever writing a line of code is difficult. Most successful startups have a business-focused founder and a technical founder.
When you’re just starting out as an entrepreneur, that process is very clunky. You move — and then you freeze. You stand there for a minute asking yourself, “Okay, what happened? Let me look at everything.” I always expected me to come with a very sound answer.
I focused on strategy, partnerships, company image, legal standing, and fundraising while trying to find the best optimal way of building this product. In a nutshell, I wore hundreds of different hats trying to keep everything together. Lacking the right technical talent significantly hindered our progress and eventually went to the startup’s death. Regardless you decide to outsource to build your MVP or to have a technical co-founder in-house, make this a priority.
Learning #2 Desirability — Would people buy your product?
We had over 20 businesses on our platform, run partnerships with events such as Taste of London and got some awards and cash prizes along the way. People genuinely liked the concept and voted for us. We walked out a national startup competition with the Lloyd’s Banking People’s choice award and had been selected as finalists in many other contests. And still, I don’t believe we cracked this, despite the sheer number of moments when we thought we validated the idea. Your solution must more than just “a nice to have”, it should be addressing a real pain.
Building a “Tribe” of early adopters and a sense of belonging around your startup idea is gold, probably more valuable than cash. Find a shared interest among a group of people and a way to communicate it. If you succeed in becoming indispensable to your customers, you have an unfair advantage. These customers will stick and eventually convert into paid users.
Learning #3 — Viability - Market size
£87.4bn pounds — this is how much we spend on eating out every year in the UK and this figure keeps going up. The Instagram influencer market value is projected to double to £2bn in 2019. Big statistics excite investors, but you’re not going after the total addressable market when you’re just starting out.
Looking at our initial market we realized there’s still enough potential, but it’s over-crowded with tens of other similar startups trying to have a slice of the pie. That’s why geographical location is crucial, as well as other socio-demographic factors.
If a business model has proved to be successful overseas, don’t just assume you could fully replicate it into your domestic market. Location is essential as well as cultural dimensions that could make your target audience either hungry or entirely apathetic to try your services.
Similar product offerings can be found in Australia (e.g. Tribe) and the US, and these are scaleups with millions of pounds investment and on their way to Series A or B. The UK is different, it’s a very competitive market where the influencer marketing landscape is at an emerging phase compared to the States.
Learning #4 — Dive straight in (to make it feel real)
On paper, yes, I founded a business. In reality, that feeling of running a company never (really) came. It may sound silly after working so hard. Local Spoon has never been my only job. I guess a part of me was always hiding behind the financial comfort of a full-time position. And when you are trying to integrate a startup on top of your studies and your day to day job it becomes a living hell.
The amount of work you’re putting into starting a business is incomparable with a 9 to 5 job. I started working on Local Spoon during my Masters. I would wake up at 6 am to go to class, go to work in the afternoon, then come home in the evening to work for another three-four hours. I spent my Saturdays in the office and worked the entire weekends to make up for the time I’ve lost. I did enjoy every second of it, but you need to see the incremental progress that moves the needle to keep you going.
Some final thoughts…
Life is a constant work-in-progress and all moments, the great huge ones and the small ones, all make-up who you are.
Nobody is born with an entrepreneurial DNA.
It’s something you learn by getting out of your comfort zone, by taking a bit of risk and being ready to adapt.
My learning curve skyrocketed since I’ve founded this company. Soon I discovered that I must deal with uncomfortable situations for which I was never prepared. From sales to accounting, I learned about financial models and product management, spoke the developers’ language(s), handled the PR side of things, and study how to pitch to investors. One day I was behind desks working on spreadsheets, the other day I was presenting on stage.
Despite all the struggle you go through to achieve your goals, success often hinges on getting the right advice or support from the right people. Decide carefully with whom you want to work. If you are a solo-entrepreneur, get surrounded by resourceful people and learn how to delegate tasks.
I’ve achieved things and met people I’ve never thought I would. If I could go back in time, I would not change a thing. If I did, then I would not be where I am today. I made mistakes in the past, but I have learned something from them.
As Leticia Gasca, Director of the Failure Institute would say — learn to fail mindfully. Being aware of the impact, of the consequences of the failure of that business. Being aware of the lessons learned. And being aware of the responsibility to share those learnings with the world.
I’ve been working in startups, with startups and most recently accelerating them through one of the largest networks of innovation programs. In 2017 I joined Startupbootcamp as a Global Marketing Manager supporting over 20 teams scale an impressive number of companies every year.
While I continue to stay active on the Western startup scene, I’m planning to bring some of the learnings to Romania one day. If you are an entrepreneur, a policy-maker, or a teacher or you simply want to make a change, let’s put our heads together.
Drop me an email at diana.florescu@startupbootcamp.org 📧
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