June: Sold my place, moved from NYC to India, and opened our first office.
July: Hired several more developers.
August: Moved into a townhouse, converted the downstairs into an office for 10 people.
October: Launched MeTooStudios, a web design and service division.
November: Co-founded 1More, a non-profit corporation.
Skip forward to March: I’ve told my team here in India that I will not be renewing their contracts. I’ve reduced our U.S. team by half. I sold MeToo Studios, and stepped down from the board of 1More. I am closing the 1ME office in India and returning back home at the end of this month.
That was my first year, in a nutshell. I have taken my company in full circle, starting out with one core product, MeSocial, and ending the year with our focus back on it. Failure was always inevitable, but learning from my mistakes and adapting is the difference between quitting and succeeding. As the company founder, I am driven by the huge risk/reward factor of my business, and I expected that others, who had risked little or less, to hold the same mindset. That is the basis of my overall failure. As I look back on this past year, I failed to achieve what I envisioned, and here are the top 5 reasons why:
1. I believed in good intentions. Good intentions are great, but when the thoughts do not align with actions and dedication, then those intentions become false hopes. I failed because I hid the fact that some team members lacked the level of experience needed, as well as the motivation to progress, learn and adapt in a startup environment. Yes, the expectation level was high, but the willingness to adapt (or not), makes or break the individual in a startup atmosphere. Individuals, by nature, do mean well, but that has little value in a startup if they lack the motivation (risk factor) to pursue changing circumstances and demands.
2. I was too nice. “Nice guys finish last” is a phrase that indicates that you cannot get what you want by being kind or considerate. Honestly, who wants to finish last anyway? There are many levels of nice, but being too nice can lead to being a push over. From my ignorance of India's culture, to avoiding confrontation, being too flexible caused me to lose respect and slowed down my overall progress. I failed to put the company first and I lost time and money because I did not make the needed changes sooner.
3. I fed on hype. A startup is a hot word and in today’s world, we see more of them and more people leaving their jobs to start one. This trend leads to hype for those individuals who are given an opportunity to be a part of one. From my perspective, the hype lasted only for a short period of time because the focus was building a future that I risked everything for. I brought on people who loved the idea, but who did not understand the risk and time that was necessary. I failed because I too got caught up in the hype, the new ideas I encountered, and new team members joining my effort. I lost sight of the future and our core mission, instead focusing on the day-to-day.
4. I was afraid to cut my losses. The first three reasons resulted in my getting to this point. Sometimes ideas and people do not just work out. My goal of wanting to teach and develop people, and to watch them become successful, hindered my resolve to take the necessary actions. I needed to let some people go and make changes on how the company operated. I failed because I was hesitant to confront those issues head-on and start over.
5. I didn’t look for a mentor. With a “do it myself” attitude, I launched into this venture with no guidance. My knowledge of the startup world was largely limited to what I saw in the news or read online. Combining my research with my professional experience, I was confident I would be able to do this on my own, and refused to actively seek mentorship or more formal startup incubators or VCs. It took me longer to realize that I was stretching myself thin, holding onto dead weight, and not aligning with the company’s original focus. Even though I had a team, most of them were younger professionally, which made it hard to bounce strategic ideas off from. I became a mentor and spent more time training then moving forward. I failed to become a mentee, but fortunately that is no longer the case now.
This past year, I have learned a lot and pushed the boundaries that I thought was impossible, further and further. I have been very patient, I have wasted time and resources, and I have negotiated with my level of expectation. I have been in a cloudy dream of having a company which did not match the reality.
I often questioned why I am even doing this at all. How much more can I bleed financially before it becomes an impossible hole to climb out from? When does ambition become a burden? Do I go back to the corporate world when I gave up everything to get out of it? Truthfully, I do not know. This venture has been a struggling blessing for me.
So what now? The company is slimmer and the focus is honed, now is the time to charge forward. Honestly, I failed and I'm glad that I did. Let yesterday's limits become today's starting point, right?
