7 key lessons from my failed startup ZappyAI

In this post, I want to talk about some of the key lessons that I learned from my failed startup ZappyAI . Creating a startup from scratch with no money is one of the hardest things you can do in life. I always wanted to be an entrepreneur and tackle the hardest things in life which led me to create ZappyAI.

There are 7 key lessons that I learned from my entrepreneurship experience at ZappyAI:

1. Venture capital funding is essential for a successful startup: Having a good amount of capital is essential if you want to succeed. You can get this amount by using your own funds or using the funds from third party sources such as venture capital funding. The success rate of a venture capital funded startup is more than 100 times higher than the non-funded startups. Lots of startups with no external funding generally die at the idea stage or the MVP stage.

2. Getting the correct team is more important than the correct idea: In the early days of startup, having the correct team members is more important than having the correct idea. The right group of people can help you navigate through difficult times and also help you improve or pivot your startup idea.

3. Idea and industry matters for the scale of success: Idea is not the most important aspect for the successful startup but it matters when it comes to scaling a business. Some ideas are much harder to raise funding for or get relevant customers. Industry matters a lot as well and a good idea generally has a group of paying customers for an incomplete product (product that solves ‘Hair on Fire’ customer problems).

4. Takes 10 times more time than you imagine: Building the first MVP, getting the first paying customer, raising external funding and many other tasks in a startup takes a long amount of time and is generally 10 times more than you plan for it. We see a lot of overnight success but all of them have a long history of idea iteration and working through many failed attempts before seeing their first success. The famous “Picasso’s Napkin Story” very well summarizes this fact which is as follows:

Picasso drew a sketch on a napkin in a cafe and a lady recognized him and asked how much she could pay for the napkin. Picasso asked for a lot of money for this drawing. The lady was shocked and said “But it only took you two minutes to draw” to which Picasso replied, “No, it took me 40 years to draw this in five minutes.”

5. Luck is the greatest superpower for a startup: Luck matters a lot for a successful startup and most of the time it matters more than even hard work or smart work. Being at the right place and at the right time makes all the difference for a startup from getting your first paying customer to your first million dollar funding check. In fact, a lot of my personal successes are due to the combination of my hard work and my luck.?

6. Helps you discover yourself: Creating a startup company from scratch is one of the hardest things you can do in life. It helps you to understand more about yourself as a person and discover your strengths and weaknesses. It allows you to understand your strengths and gives you insights on what you enjoy doing.

7. Puts you on a steep learning curve: For me, one of the best parts of doing a startup is that it gives you the opportunity to grow at an exponential rate. Doing a startup is like throwing yourself in an ocean and then you learn to swim or die trying. This is very famously captured by Reid Hoffman who says, ‘Entrepreneurs jump off a cliff and build parachutes on their way down.’

I have learned a lot of valuable lessons with ZappyAI and I am proud of what I have achieved so far. I am currently on the journey for my next startup AICromo with the lessons learned from ZappyAI.?