How not to build a business

Do not index

I have been an entrepreneur for a few years now, starting my first business at the age of 19. I have done things in the physical world and in the digital world. However, I have never created a company which has become truly successful. As a result of taking the leap multiple times, I have made tons of bad decisions. There is a great saying that goes:

“Making good decisions comes from experience, experience comes from making bad decisions.”

Every time I try something new, I go a step further, coming closer to that objective. In my search for that capacity to make the right decisions, I always try to learn from others, reading entrepreneurship books by the dozens. There is always good advice in them. Nevertheless, after all my reading I have come to the conclusion that there is something missing: what do the people that fail do? When we learn from the strata of companies that have been successful, often survivorship bias guides their story. Knowing what the right decisions were is useful, but it is equally useful to learn from those decisions that went wrong.

The following blog posts series plan to fill that void. I will explain all the stupid mistakes I have made when building businesses and the key learnings that came as a result. Hopefully, you will be able to avoid them and become successful entrepreneurs faster than I. In the end, the way to have success is through tenacity. As opposed to what we normally believe, it is not intelligence which is the highest indicator for success. Of course, some degree of intelligence helps but it is the sheer willingness to continue trying things despite setbacks which guarantees success. I use mistakes as a proxy, but learning is the correct way to measure if those mistakes are worth your while. Learning enables you to reduce risk, so that you can afford making more bets, trying more times. In the end, success will arrive.

Practical advice: iMenoo

I have found out that for me, the best way to learn is with practical explanations. Real life situations help fill the voids left by theory. Therefore, I will tell you about my failed startup iMenoo. First, let’s briefly describe what iMenoo was.

What was the company’s target?

It was the end of 2017. I wanted to revolutionise the backward, non-digital restaurant sector by upgrading their physical menus into digital ones. This was the natural progression of all services. I always used the airline industry as an example and how no one printed their boarding passes any more. A digital menu would provide restaurants with a powerful tool to display their products more dynamically and reduce the pain that comes from having a physical medium. In order to access the menu, users would simply have to scan a QR code on the table and voilá.

Who was the team?

I had just finished a web development bootcamp and found myself with the right tools - and the conviction - of being able to launch a software service. I had met my co-founder in the same bootcamp. He was way better technically than I was, so we decided to split roles: I would sell and design the product, and he would build it.

What did we achieve?

We managed to have around 28 paying restaurants. Since it was a software as a service, restaurants paid us a recurring monthly amount of 25€. All in all, we made around 700€ per month.

How long did it last?

The business was alive for around 6 months. After that time, my co-founder and I decided to discontinue the company because the growth was not as fast as we expected. Writing this years after, I have realised that I learnt more during those 6 months than reading any book about entrepreneurship.