Bankrupt at 21, or: 3 surprising points failure taught me about success

I went bankrupt at 21. Starting and failing early meant I learned a lot about business, about friendship and about myself. Looking back it was the hardest time in my life.?

After our first startup coPAY failed, I was stuck in a mode where I couldn’t go forward, and, of course, I couldn't go back either. Once we (my fellow Co-Founders Carlo, Christoph and me) finally saw that we needed to close the doors of coPay, I signed up for unemployment benefits from the state.?

That was not quite the outcome I was dreaming of when founding a company. After six weeks of sitting at home and thinking about what to do, I met someone at Bertelsmann (a 100% coincidence), who gave me a job as an intern after I offered to work with no salary for the first 3 months.?

Since those “unpaid times” (as I call them) a lot of things have happened: Bertelsmann became the majority shareholder of the applike group, our new venture, which has become a leading player in the global app economy as of today. That’s how the past years luckily have become “paid times”.?

Failing early gave me time and space to try out my ideas, learn from my mistakes and most importantly: Try again. 90% of startups fail. However, without going through my early failure, I wouldn’t have learned the necessary lessons needed to run the applike group today.?

So, let’s look into my key 3 learnings what I learned and how it changed me.

1. Be an allrounder

As a founder, you need to do everything in an early-stage startup: Organise investment, sell, develop the first iterations of your product, analyse KPIs and optimise. No one tells you what's right or wrong. Actually many people will rather tell you what's wrong, as nothing works quite yet. The time to focus on refining your role will come once your company is growing, the beginning is about getting involved in every area of your business.

For example, back when we set up coPay, I was selling our voucher solution for coPay door-to-door myself to coffee shop owners. That experience taught me to put myself into multiple roles in a short period of time, which I still use at applike group today. Right now, our companies operate in 100+ countries and our revenues are going to grow x5 in 2021 vs. 2020.

In such a fast-paced environment, it's a good skill to be able to get your hands dirty on many different fronts every day.

2. Don't seek out your friends’ opinion

In the beginning, most of your friends and family will tell you your idea won’t work out as a successful business. The majority of my study companions from business school went on to follow corporate careers with stable business models for cool brands. At times, I had the feeling that my peers looked down on me a bit, even.

Those early days are tough, a lot of things go wrong, you run out of money, you pivot three times in three months to keep going. You have to stay focussed on what you believe is the next right step for your startup, because the rest of the world won't give you the answers that you need.

Your friends will be there to support you in those times, but most likely will not be able to help you in your specific field of business.

3. Find a mentor who has already been in your shoes

Only folks that built a successful company from scratch will understand what you are facing, and they are the ones who will be able to help you to succeed. Of course these people are in short supply, but finding the right mentors will increase your probability of success by several factors. And, in my experience, they are always happy to help because they understand the challenges in front of you.

Sometimes, these aren’t even official mentorships, but can be business partners that gain interest in what you do and who are open for a more in-depth conversation. In our case, Tim Koschella was one of our early "silent" mentors. Tim founded a company in a similar space (app marketing), was one of our first business partners and - most importantly - the first person who said: “No one tried that yet, maybe you have a shot.” Thanks, man! ;)

The final take away: What you should do if you want to become an entrepreneur

In general, founding a company as the first step into the business after university can be very thrilling, but you will more than likely fail. The route to becoming an entrepreneur is lengthy, expensive and tough. But also more exciting and rewarding than any other route.?

If someone asked me what they should do if they wanted to become a founder, my key hints would be:?

• Join a high growth startup
• Find a position that is in close proximity to the founders
• Pay close attention to how the leadership team makes decisions

Essentially: Go and get paid to learn from people who are already doing what you want to do. You can use these insights to go for your dream. And then take your shot at building your own successful venture.

Which might become the best decision you have ever made.

Up for a new challenge? Feel free to check out open positions in applike group's ventures in Hamburg/Germany: adjoe, sunday, justDice and justtrack. We would be glad to get know you :-)