Startup founders need humility. Really? Humility?

There is nothing else that VCs are looking for more in early-stage founders as confidence and belief in what they’re doing and trying to achieve. It is almost impossible to fake enthusiasm and drive for a subject, whether we’re talking about political views, faith, or your startup idea. And VCs know that.?

This is the story about exactly that - founding a startup, getting obsessed about the problem, having buckets full of “can-do” attitude, never stopping and finally having to admit that the key to success is… humility.?

Let’s get back to where it all began. . We ( Mantas Urnieza , Algimantas Padegimas and me) started Fullreach.io 20 months ago. Our initial idea was to fight soaring customer acquisition costs and the Google-Meta duopoly in online advertising (hey -shoot for the stars, right?).?

We built a fantastic team and invested a lot in the fundamentals - our team, investors, company values/principles and the vision of the company.?

But even with all that, the first 16 months were brutal. We had to pivot for the first time just 6 months after starting. We realized that the approach we took required way too much money and involved too many risks to bet on (even for brave investors, with a “let’s build a unicorn” attitude).?

At that stage, we dove deep into the “never give up” mentality and tried out 5 other approaches in the next 3-4 months, doing proper MVTs (minimal viable tests) before singling out one idea. That idea was Realthy – a marketplace for US-based real estate agents, where they could find anything they might need for running their business. Everything seemed “right”. We had a huge addressable market (2.2 million realtors), a clear need for such a service, and a? team to build the product in place.?

In the next 6 months, we built a platform with hundreds of integrated partnerships, managed to convince thousands of real estate agents to join, made our first sales, and tracked amazing growth results. In May 2022, we had a product, 4000+ customers, and relatively no revenue. We were burning ~100k EUR a month and money was running out quickly.?

Whatever we tried to do with our pricing models, different approaches and sales efforts, we could not find a product-market fit. Real estate agents were happy with the product and kept spending time on the platform, but didn’t generate us money.

By that time, we had spent 1MM EUR of the money received from our trusting and very patient investors on developing and launching a product in the US without any direct experience of the market and industry. Hindsight is 20/20, but no one from our team had extensive experience in real estate, and - what’s even crazier - half of the team had never been to the US!?

We were a bunch of brave, smart, and confident people who believed they could power through without all that. We thought we would learn the ins and outs of the market as we were developing the product.

Humility, folks. That’s what our team lacked.?

I remember the first time it really hit me. This was during a chat with our current CEO, real estate know-it-all, and a genuinely great human being Sam Sawyer . We were having burgers overlooking San Francisco’s piers and he just “killed” me with his humility: “I don’t know anything about marketing or development, Tadas. Real estate is one thing that I know. I have been doing this my whole life”. I remember laughing at that. Sam obviously knew way more - he was running a successful startup, a cloud-based brokerage provider called Pinnacle Realty Advisors . However, the ability to “confess” that something is not your key strength and you might need help in specific areas is crucial.?

In retrospect, our team was very different - we had 0 expertise in real estate, but within the last 20 months, we had proved time and time again that we could develop a product at warp speed and do wonders with client acquisition.?

3 months after that chat (August 2022), Fullreach.io signed docs to merge with Pinnacle Realty Advisors . Now we have everything to make real estate better for everyone - real estate expertise, product development expertise, and customer acquisition prowess, a vision to shake the “old ways” in the real estate industry and a team that, I believe, can achieve anything.?

How did we pull it off? Well, we did well on fundamentals:

1. I cannot stress enough how important it is to choose wisely who your investors are. Launchpad Capital ’s contribution to making this happen is huge. Ryan Gilbert introduced us to Sam (12 months back), Jurgen Van De Vyver made a call to convince me to drop everything and come meet Sam in San Francisco for those burgers. And Launchpad invested not only in Fullreach, they continue to invest in Pinnacle Realty Advisors. Could not be happier to have these guys in our corner of the ring.?
2. Team - we have invested heavily in hiring the right people, giving everyone equity, aligning our values, keeping everyone in the loop on what is going on with the team/product, etc. That built trust and helped us immensely in difficult situations. And believe me, we had a few.?
3. Product - we knew that we had a product that solves an actual problem on the market. We will reuse it to improve Pinnacle Realty Advisors ’ offering and bring value to everyone working with Pinnacle Realty Advisors now and in the future.?

So the Fullreach.io story continues, just under a different name – Pinnacle Realty Advisors ? – and new challenges ahead.?

If anybody is interested in the startup “merger” process and “do’s and dont’s”, please comment below, as I’m happy to share more about the topic.?