Mistakes and failures in 2023
This year has been bitter sweet. It started on a sad note. I had no money, job or learnings. I am hoping it will end on a better note. A stable income source, tons of learning and positive outcomes.
👋 Ola! I am Shantanu. Welcome to Out of Singapore. I write about my experience of building businesses from scratch.
This edition is going to be a short one. My laptop screen has been misbehaving for the past week. Even the technician is confused. He has decided to do a full blown surgery over the weekend. That leaves me with my aged phone to write this edition. Let's see how much I can deliver today.
I like to talk about failures. It keeps me grounded. It helps clear my mind. I look back and rewind how I got out of the situation? My past keeps teaching me everyday. Today I would like to share some of these failures. To me, failures are gold.
Started the year with a clean slate
In Dec 2022, I was in Bangalore (India) trying to close the seed round for Zaloom. Instead, my co-founder said he wants out. My third co-founder was non-trustable, so there wasn't a team anymore. It was the 9th month of the startup journey and I had reached nowhere (that's not true, but assume it for simplicity). I had my doubts about the team during the journey. However, I had brushed them off since the co-founding team is bound to have tension.
First, I should have taken a call on breaking up the team when we were rejected the second time for our proposal. Second, I tried to bite too much. The markets we chose were all new for us - Agri exports, commodity trading, Indonesia traders and Singapore traders. Third, team cannot be remote from day 1. Fourth, cash in the bank is important to actually start off the ground.
It took me 2 months to realize that it is a lost cause and I should stop trying to save the company. Fortunately, I had slowly started working on my alternative - find a job in SG. By Feb starting, I was fully engrossed in applying to as many jobs as possible. I had also given up my dream of being a product manager in a tech company.
It was mid of March 2023 that managed to find something meaningful. Not the best but something with a promise. I took the bet. It's 7 months since. I am in a better place in the same company. The journey had started with a doubt from the management on my capabilities. It has transitioned to a good amount of confidence now.
Consistently failed in last 7 months
Let's talk about key failures during the last 7 months. It looks rosy, but it's a lot of pain and failures throughout.
The initial setup of the supplements brand was of poor quality - website, creatives, story, copy - I honestly hadn't done all of this all together at one go. I was trying to make it work by compromising on quality over execution. However, the good part was that all of this improved gradually. In fact, now I swear by this approach as a better one for a startup.
I thought that I could manage 2 brands at the same time. I was consumed by one brand and did not get time to work on the second brand. The launch of the second brand was delayed by 4 months. I am still not sure how I will manage both the beasts.
I often undermine the time it can take to complete tasks. I approved a redesign of the brand packaging 5 weeks before the launch. That one decision cost us 5 months.
Talent is either scarce or expensive in Singapore. Running a brand without a few millions means you cannot access the best talent pool. This also makes you creative about hiring talent. Today, there is only 1 fulltime member in the team supported by an intern. Rest everything is outsourced. The results are positive and costs are low.
I failed as a team manager. The members distrusted me and my approach. It translated into a toxic gossip culture, also leading to the departure of the members. It was hard. Communicating what I want is still a challenge.
I believed that Facebook ads will work like magic. I was so wrong. We got almost no conversion. We didn't realize that Facebook is all about creative testing. We spent 2.5 months running zero ROI campaigns.
My one big failure has been the US market. It is still not moving. I haven't been able to make the market work yet.
PR has been tricky game. I was initially trying the cheap PR websites. I refused to pay even 2K SGD for a good PR. I finally woke up reality and after 3 months we got decent PR. It came at a cost. So much more needs to be done for PR.
How about you guys? What have been the key setbacks this year? Tell me, tell me!
I am in KL this week, and hopefully will write my next edition from there. In another news, I finally started running again. I haven't crossed the 10 km mark yet, but soon.
I cannot insert meme today since Chrome doesn't allow me to. 😪
But I managed to get a cute gif of Jisoo. Hahaha.
Have a great week ahead! 💪