Emotions, Entrepreneurship, and coffee...

I am an early stage, 23-year-old, first-time entrepreneur. I have set up my first company, Foundley, together with my co-founders roughly 9 months ago, and I can tell you that it's been a real emotional rollercoaster ever since we started. Honestly, I can't wait to share my journey with you.

There are 2 main reasons why I am writing this:

1. I believe that we, entrepreneurs, need to speak a lot more about our emotions and our mental health. Entrepreneurship can be a most rewarding career, but it for sure is the most emotionally intensive one as well. Hence, let's talk about how we feel, and let's support each other.
2. Maybe a bit selfish reason, but I really need to vent somewhere, and writing this helps me do that. Furthermore, if my writing reaches people who have similar experiences to mine, and who want to engage and talk about it, it'll make me happy.

I will divide my journey so far into 4 segments, every segment will cover both the business aspect and the underlying emotional aspect. Like most entrepreneurial journeys, Foundley's journey starts with the Ideation Stage.

?? Ideation Stage (Enthusiasm, love, and more enthusiasm| us and the grand idea)

Business:

• There is three of us, one technical co-founder and two of us on the business side of things
• We are talking to as many relevant people as humanly possible and religiously collecting and analyzing all feedback that we get
• Validating our idea, selling our vision, and getting people excited about what we are about to create
• Conceptualizing our vision and trying to come up with a concrete/actionable plan that will lead towards our MVP
• Some co-founder problems start coming up, Tech vs Business side, who is doing more work and who is delivering more. Nothing serious tho. We love each other and want to work with each other, we can all visualize massive success

Emotions: (enthusiasm, happiness, drive, excitement)

• Enthusiasm is through the roof, everyone seems to understand and like our vision, we know we have a billion-dollar idea
• I would even argue that at this stage I am a genuinely happy person, I feel that I've made a good decision to quit my full-time job and start working building my own business
• I am childishly excited about all the next steps and even tho some co-founder issues arise, I can't wait to build up Foundley with my team

?? Pre - MVP Stage (Pain | co-Founder departure)

Business:

• MVP is being built by our technical co-founder
• The business side is pressuring the tech side to develop faster, the tech side argues that the business side is not delivering anything tangible while the MVP is being developed. Increasing tensions among co-founders
• Our third, non-tech, co-founder stops all communication with us. FUCK - we are losing momentum. We later found out that she had some personal issues for which she had to leave Foundley
• I am starting to reach out to more experienced entrepreneurs, asking for both business and personal advice. I start feeling the power of their support

Emotions: (pain, fear, self-doubt, frustration, stress, and support)

• This 'product anticipation' was really stressful and frustrating for me. My co-founder, but also I myself wasn't feeling that I am doing enough work, despite working 24/7. That awful feeling of underachievement
• The enthusiasm started wearing off and the reality started kicking in. I've just realized how big of a risk I took on. I am scared, I have this constant feeling that I not doing enough, I am starting to worry about failure. Quitting starts crossing my mind way too often, and I started hating myself for having that thought
• Boom, now my co-founder is leaving. That is devastating. Given that my tech co-founder is still in full-time employment elsewhere, I am starting to feel all the weight of the risk on my shoulders. I am even more scared than before
• I feel as if my brain is being blocked by too much fear, worry, self-doubt, and frustration. I know that I am losing perspective and that I have to cool my head a bit
• After receiving support from a couple of more experienced entrepreneurs, I feel a lot better. I am back on track, motivated, and ready to kill it once we roll out the MVP

?? MVP and Product-Market Fit (Confidence | we're on to something)

Business:

• In the first 3 weeks from launching our MVP, we get 500+ student users and 20+ company users. Not too bad ??
• We are receiving mostly positive feedback from all our active users, we are delivering real value to our users and everybody feels it
• No severe tensions between my co-founder and me, we're getting along quite well at this stage
• We have a handshake partnership deal (to be executed in September) with a huge corporation, Capgemini.
• We feel like we have validated our product, let's get some money and build the real thing now

Emotions: (Joy, anticipation, confidence, motivation)

• I am enjoying this process, heck I am even loving the process
• I am starting to forget all the pain that a previous couple of months caused, I am healing
• I sleep well at night, I work out regularly, I am leading a busy but happy and healthy life

?? Fundraising (Anger | how can't you see my vision?)

Business:

• Fucking COVID-19... Investors are kind of scared, especially Angel Investors, the ones that I need and the ones that I was and still am counting on. The common answer is: "Look, your idea is obviously great and we would like you to give us updates every month or so, but it's just not the right time for us to invest", this answer is almost as bad as "Sorry, we just can't see how could your business scale at this moment"
• VC's are only doing follow on rounds and are reluctant to get on a call with an early stage, pre-revenue, tech-startup "Let's speak again early to mid-2021"
• We are trying to figure out if there is any way in which we can bootstrap our product development. We can bootstrap, but it will take more time, and let's be honest we simply need both money, support and external validation from an experienced Angel or a VC fund - if we want to make it big

Emotions: (anticipation, impatience, anger, disappointment, and a bit of hope)

• Fundraising is probably the most emotionally draining stage in a startup's development. I want to scale my business ASAP, so I am super impatient and I want to raise money TODAY. Quite annoyingly, investors are not rushing at all, moreover, they would like this process to last for as long as possible, ideally until we reach 100K monthly users and 10 million ARR ??
• Investors are usually giving me misleading signs, and I am again in a constant state of anticipation. More often than not, this anticipation ends up as one big fat disappointment spiced up with some anger flavors
• The good thing is that at this stage I am quite determined to go all the way with Foundley because I know that we are on to something big. I just hope that investors will see our vision the way we see it rather sooner than later

???♂? Product Launch (Anticipation | PENDING)

...

I hope you enjoyed reading this story, wrote it from the heart! ??

In my next article, I am planning to write about all the things that are helping me stay on track and stay positive, and about how entrepreneurship pushes me to learn more about myself in a short period of time. And look, although the entrepreneurial journey isn't always sweet, it is definitely the most exciting one!

P.S. If you're thinking "why Emotions, Entrepreneurship, and Coffee" it's because I didn't drink coffee before becoming an entrepreneur. I am now at 4 a day ?