My first startup was an ugly baby.
It was years ago when I was still new and impressionable in the startup space. I was part of a small and enthusiastic team that just won their first startup competition. Having a positive spirit and a clever idea that involves a trending tech, we were selected as one of the best startup ideas at that competition and was awarded a coworking space for a few months alongside with some startup support to get off the ground. We had a great idea, a positive team and support from an incubator, what could go wrong? A few of us decided to go all in on this startup, quit our 9-5 to put in more hours to get the MVP going.
But there was one problem…
Our whole startup was an ugly baby built on a house of assumptions.
And the worst part of it was, we were too focus on development that we didn’t do any further validations aside from the initial ones and we were too protective of our baby that we were completely blinded to what others actually thought of it.
Little did we know, our startup was going to come crashing down in a few months shortly after our big launch of the MVP.
Things would have been a lot more different if we weren’t fearful of others stealing our idea.
Things would have been a lot more different if we had spent more time building a community, listened to their needs and made pivots to ensure our product was more relevant.
Things would have been a lot more different if we assumed less and validated more.
There’s this saying that
“When you assume, you end up making an ass out of u and me”
Shortly after our failed launch, some team members dropped out embarrassed, the drop in morale killed all momentum and the team disbanded and went their own ways, some back to the 9-5 lifestyle and others joining other startups.
This doesn’t have to be your startup.
Because next Wednesday, we will be having three local startups share how they validated their startups. Two of them are current finalists (top 25) at the BCIC New Ventures competition. Come out, get to know their story and meet other tech leaders, startup peers and people in the startup space. Find out what the ugly baby problem is and how to overcome it.
RSVP here:
