Lost and Found: Sailing Through FuelMe's Challenges

The idea of building a meal delivery service took form in May 2017, at a small lunch table downtown Helsinki with Mika across from me. We knew very little of the food industry (aside from appreciating actual food) but we knew our daily struggle, and of those around us, very well: coming up with and eventually cooking a good, nutritious meal on a daily basis while having an active and busy lifestyle. With a business plan, operational framework and first P&L calculations, we had a common belief this could work. But in reality it needed to be tested properly.

After a few months of quantitative and qualitative research and delivery tests with real customers, initial results seemed positive: there was a demand for this service in Helsinki and people were willing to actually pay for it (proof of concept: check). Hopping on the chance to build something concrete and exciting, I quit my full-time job and started piloting the concept. I bursted through the following 1,5 years with all the energy and drive. The pilot where we had outsourced all operations (everything related to food and deliveries) had decent results and confirmed our earlier hypotheses. After the pilot, a handful investors jumped onboard which gave us sufficient funds to build our own service and we started our own operations - exactly two years after that little seed was planted at that small lunch table. The following 6 months were very tough: I had very little experience in the food industry, let alone in running a whole food service. Without a lot of help in the kitchen (read: do not expect to be home before midnight on a cooking day or have full days off), the first few months were overwhelming and I quickly realized how many puzzle pieces in the whole model needed to fit together to make it work smoothly. But being aware of the value we were offering to busy lives, I did know how to communicate well with (interested) customers and sell the service.

Like many first-time entrepreneurs, I had a hard time pushing the brakes and knowing my limits. After only a few months I already stared into the deep and dark abyss of a burn-out. Taking a break and acknowledging the state I was in just in time, I took a small step back and rested up before the year's end. With a rested mind, more knowledge and gathered data to make better decisions, business started to take off slowly. When Corona hit Finland in March 2020, we initially thought this would be bad for our business. With all pick-up points closed and wanting to continue serving customers, we quickly switched to home deliveries (which I had avoided until then, just out of fear of logistical mistakes and costs). Existing customers and a wider audience appreciated the service during those strange times and suddenly we accumulated growth nicely. We were able to upgrade our service, tweak production processes bit by bit, hire good employees, do smarter (and bigger) marketing campaigns and turn the business into a profitable one about 8 months after our launch.

Everything seemed to be going well and I think we were able to portray a trustworthy quality meal delivery service with good value for money. Yet from the outside, no one is able to see the setbacks, mistakes and challenges that are inherently a part of your journey as a business owner, regardless of what stage you as a company (or owner) are at. As for mistakes: I made plenty of them. From recruiting, marketing, customer support, deciding short- and long-term vision, down to the nitty gritty things of which things to let go off and which not - I made them in all areas of the business and a lot of them. And in that moment that followed after making a mistake, and often the days, weeks and months following, I could beat myself up for it. In those periods, my self-criticism made it hard for me to acknowledge I did the best I could.

Paired with this, anxiety and stress were often looming over my daily life and looking back now I remember very few periods I would not have taken it with me wherever I went: social events, any kinds of sports, "relaxing" activities such as watching TV show, casual conversations with my partner and in bed trying to sleep. Physically I was there in that moment, but my head was often a turm-oil of current smaller and bigger company problems, decisions I had to make, mistakes I made or could still make, difficult conversations I needed (or avoided) to have, the most widely imagined doom scenarios, planning the weekly menus and needed ingredient purchases, calculating and dreading the busy and hectic cooking days, having financial worries about the company and my own, figuring out the delivery puzzle and a heavy backlog of countless (mini-)decisions that, in the long-run, actually did not matter. Through experience and learnings, I got better at managing and coping with these stress and anxiety levels and while some periods were definitely better than others, it never fully went away.

A bit over one year ago, growth slowly came to a halt. For summer times this would be a normal, seasonal thing. But just before that, a mix of different events played out that did not make this situation easier: rising costs of e.g. ingredients, expensive marketing campaigns that had not paid off and long-term staff leaving. We lost our whole financial buffer for that summer but were determined (or very hopeful) things would pick up after summer. But they did not. Margins were smaller than they were before and with a decreased order volume, we had to start scratching running costs like marketing, employees and my own salary. After the pilot of 5 years earlier, after putting in the work and planning that was needed to get things going, eventually getting to a process where you can be less hands-on and more directive, this new uncertain situation made me feel I was back at square one. Except now I was filled with even more worries and stress than I started with.

As usual I pondered over our status and I realized the engine behind the company (i.e. me) needed fixing, perhaps even replacing. Taking a (long) break could definitely have helped to gain perspective and re-gain that initial energy - a 10-day holiday helped but was not sufficient. With all the challenges on production and finances, a longer break was not possible and we would eventually lose even more?customers and therefore revenue. Invoices, salaries and other costs were piling up rapidly. It was hard to still feel confident it would all work out. I could have pushed for another investment round to get back on course but I decided against that: knowing I needed to change my involvement and the company not being in best place, it felt like a fake and dishonest move towards current or potential investors.

During that period, I felt that the worries, setbacks and countless hours of work during the past years had started to take its toll. I held on to mantras like "never give up" and "all this will eventually pay off", which nowadays seems so ingrained in the so-called entrepreneurial spirit. After all, do you ever read about others that did give up, let go of their company and are now happier? Those stories do not seem to circulate. Yet being truthful to myself, I felt I reached a limit. A limit where your company and your identity are so tangled up, it starts to impact your well being: mentally, physically, financially, and eventually your overall daily happiness. I even started to dislike this "thing" that I created. It was a signal it was time to take a step back.

A decisive moment came in Christmas 2022, where I acknowledged this limit out loud: I wanted to stop the service in the following 3 months, find a solution to avoid bankruptcy and eventually take distance from the company. The first feeling I experienced after sharing this with my closest ones, was relief. For so long, you can only picture yourself doing the thing you are doing now, building and growing your company. Your future is the company's future and vice versa. Realizing you can perhaps focus on something else, taking you away from daily anxiety and stress, feels liberating. Starting 2023 with the last energy and drive I had in me to avoid bankruptcy, I got off to connect with people inside and outside my network who might see value in what was already built and were perhaps interested to take it over. After 2 months, while juggling daily operations, discussing/planning any sort of "exit" with multiple varied companies and also thinking about what comes after this, the domino blocks suddenly started to fall. During several phone calls, I connected greatly with Yuri Seregichev - after building his own food service and seeing the value FuelMe could add to that, I felt Yuri had the know-how, drive and right ideas to get back to managing and growing the business. A few months of hand-overs, training, implementations and knowledge transfers, Yuri was running FuelMe on his own.

Aside from negative experiences and feelings, I take a lot of positives from the journey during the last years. The feeling of creating something that has a real, practical impact on people's daily lives is very satisfying. A service that is not easy to build - at all - and for which customers keep paying, some of them for multiple years. Without crossing any line to sounding arrogant, I am proud of myself for doing that. The fact this service is actually still running at this moment because of the past work and dedication during 6 years, is pretty awesome. Only now I am able to see I have grown a lot as a professional and person in general. This growth has definitely helped me to land an exciting position in a cool company (more about that in another post).

I received tons of support during the past few years, from people that were closely involved to others who I only crossed paths with - thank you for that. I want to thank co-founder Mika Rekola for jumping on the train and only getting off at the last stop with me, investors for their belief, board members and advisors for the guidance, friends and family for their understanding, help and love, loyal customers for their continuous feedback and support, and my rock Tuulia for always being by my side no matter what.

If any of the above somehow resonated and you would like to have a chat about your business, the storms you are facing or the waves you are surfing, send me a message and we'll go grab a coffee.