Or both? Or neither?
Why did I blow my life savings on a startup that crash and burned only to be driven to do it again?
Startup founders need to be a little crazy.
You have to go on and be crazy. Craziness is like heaven.
- Jimi Hendrix
Sometimes I describe it as a curse, this passion for taking an idea that pushes the boundaries of what's possible into the stratosphere of common discussion. If you woke up at 6am to work on something until midnight every single day for as long as you humanly can, all while making zero income, I think you might consider it a curse, as well.
You'd probably agree with me on the crazy part, too!
Or maybe you would just go about it differently. ^^you ^^smart ^^cookie, ^^you!
About 6 years ago I was consumed by, essentially, these two graphs*:
That's all of the remittances and their costs, respectively, on average, in the United States. *Graphs are the new versions of the ones I was ogling over 6 years ago.
Remittance is just a fancy word for sending money from one country to another. Think Western Union or MoneyGram.
The problem: remittances are expensive. The more I dug into them, the more I realized that they were not expensive because they were necessary to be expensive, they were expensive mostly because there were no less expensive providers. There are several banks involved in most remittances and each one of them makes a little, such that paying more than 7% per transfer is common. Some corridors (a remittance sender/receiver pair, ie America to Africa corridor) cost more than others, depending on the servicing partners.
Long story short, it seemed like an obvious problem that could be solved with cryptocurrency. Bitcoin, for instance, relies on no banking partners, and transfers anywhere with an internet connection for no more than it costs to send a text.
That is... until you want to turn it into some local fiat currency. Regardless, if you could cut the number of banks used in a transaction in half, you would be saving the end user enough money to be a reasonable alternative.
Mission accepted, let's fix remittances!
All I needed to do was find someone who knew how to build this thing.
I was totally 'into computers'. I was the go-to IT guy for the realtors I worked with in the past and for the screen printer I worked for at the time. I was the real deal; I built my own computer! In the 90's, as a kid, I got kicked off of AOL for using 'unauthorized code'. I didn't write it, but I sure knew some Javascript when I saw it! I even worked for a stint in 2000 at Sun Microsystems.
Why couldn't I build a professional enterprise-scale full-stack web application with a tablet-based interface made to run on in-store devices for consumers? Oh and a company that could go ten rounds with Western Union. Why not?
I was told I could do anything I put my mind to.
If you pay someone else to build it, they will come you will fail
The thought process went something like this:
[x] Found problem
[x] Thought up a possible solution
[x] Found investors
[x] Googled the shit out of remittances
[] Built solution
I had 4 out of the 5 things necessary to make this idea a real thing and compete at scale against the big boys. All I needed to do was find someone who knew how to build this thing...
Spoiley Alert!
Those were my famous last words. Nothing useful gets built, the next round of funding was not raised, and the world was not changed by my crazy passion for low-cost remittances.
Life crumbles.
Breathe.
I'm not a failure, I'm experienced
It was actually a little surprising that after my company failed, I was still alive. Inside, it felt like something big had died. The fact that my physical body was still doing its thing was like "whoa, there's life after this?"
I knew the statistics, like you are pretty much always going to fail. 90%
of the time, no way buddy. At some level, I must have assumed the people failing were always going to be the other 9 in the room.
Darkest before the light and all that good stuff, I came out of that deep depression with a newfound mission: knowledge.
After everything falls apart, leverage the lessons learned through experience to rebuild better than before.
The following are some little tidbits that I learned through the experience. And hey, you probably already know this stuff! If you do, feel free to chuckle at me and my obvious foolishness while you read them.
But, if you are like me, and somehow didn't "get it" by the time you decide to go out in the world and "get it", I hope the tips help :)
Lesson #1: Be the guy.
Don't rely on others for that which you can provide yourself. This doesn't mean 'do everything yourself'. This means 'be able to do all the important stuff yourself'.
Lesson #2: Be all possibilities.
Don't just envision 'success', or just 'one way you can be successful'. Envision all possible outcomes. Optimize for a preferred path, but anticipate all other paths in the process. Choose wisely. Roll with the changes. It's like prepare for the worst but expect the best, except without any silly "perspectiveness".
Perhaps Bruce Lee said it best: Be like water.
Always have contingencies in place.
Lesson #3: Hustling meditates.
Hustling is meditating. Hustling is taking frequent short breaks to stretch. Hustling is being connected to the project but still being connected to your loved ones.
Hustling makes time stop and smell the roses, and not only because that may be where the next startup idea lies.
In other words, find balance! Hard work doesn't mean you need to drink Soylent 24/7 and not leave your 'lab' until Series A.
Startup, again???
My response to failing was to learn, with a vengeance. And learn I did.
Eventually, I found my way into Lambda School, and consumed everything I could. I powered my way through every role and opportunity I could within the school. Some of my new-favorite people on the planet I met while being a student, Team Lead, Project Manager, Teaching Assistant, and Section Lead at Lambda.
For the record, Lambda does not train you to be an entrepreneur. If anything, it focuses on anything other than being an entrepreneur.
But the skills, oh the skills! With these skills, and better timing, I could have been the first to really slam dunk crypto remittance! With these skills, and these like minded killers on my side, we can make anything a reality!
And the ideas! How could I forget the ideas! It's like being back in the VLAB team, it's non-stop ideas and discussion and debate and collaboration and fun fun fun!
Breathe.
I like building businesses. Startups are an inseparable part of me. I can see that now.
Everything is different now. A startup now is something that I envision can run concurrently with a career in this thing that I love: software development. A startup is maybe something I can get going and pivot my life into, when the time is right. I have the team now, maybe we can just make progress on the side while we do responsible things, like get jobs with 401k's and unlimited PTO.
Well...
maybe just a couple angel meetings.
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