When I started Cartfuel in 2020, I thought I could do it alone.
My mindset was that I had the drive, and the resources, and nothing was going to stop me from achieving the outcome I wanted…which was a 7-figure exit after 3 years.
After being in business officially for over 2 years, I can say I grossly underestimated the skillset, the time, the knowledge, the capital, and the technical ability it would take to get that outcome.
I liked the idea of being a solo founder because it made me the hero. It made me, in the eyes of my friends, family, and people on the internet, the person who could do it without ever doing it before.
My first-time founder syndrome was real.
Looking back, I would have found a co-founder or team sooner. I would have saved tons of time and capital if I had found someone with the same vision and drive as me early on. Being a solo founder only gets you so far. For me, it got me to about 2.5k MRR before I started to feel the growing pains.
Things were breaking, bugs were occurring and money was running low.
Because I’m not a developer I had to rely on developers from Upwork.
Every change, bug fix, or feature introduction costs money. I spent all my savings and all my crypto gains and it wasn’t enough. The business needed help badly.
Customers were asking for features and I couldn’t develop them fast enough.
Imagine having customers practically saying take my money and you can’t because you lack the capital to introduce features they need to succeed.
So my customers would churn and rightfully so. They weren’t being listened to.
If I had to do it all over again, I would have either raised more money from the beginning or found a co-founder with a tech background that could have helped me with the nitty-gritty parts of building the platform.
If you’re thinking about starting a business, I urge you to find a co-founder or team that shares the same vision as you. It will make the journey so much easier and you’ll get to your destination much faster.
I had this realization late but not too late. I was able to find a team that saw the vision, believed in the potential upside, and had the technical ability to make it happen.
You don’t have to be the lone hero. Find your people and build something great together.
It’ll be worth it in the end.