startup journey - update 1

i write my experiences by running a startup in this series and this is the first note.

in this series of essays, i’m gonna write my experiences on building a startup from zero to where we can go. my whole purpose in writing these essays is to record my feelings, findings, and stories along the way. i know that these simple and short essays will be somehow valuable, for myself or for others, in the future and i will write them as frequently as possible.

this season of our story is called "shalam-shoorba". it's a persian phrase meaning that nothing is going right, chaos is in almost every element of our work, from channels and products to even individuals, and in summary, we're in doubt. this is all i can say. we didn't have any meaningful achievement and we're just trying to get out of this situation.

before running a real startup, if you had asked me what is the meaning of a startup, i would say that it's an innovative company that is going to grow fast and disrupt something mainstream. but for now, my definition of the early-stage startup is like that comes in my recent tweet:

but nothing will stay in its bad situation. we will change and will change everything needed for the success of our startup. i really believe in our team, our principles, and our vision, and want to write about them in the next few lines.

our today's team is somehow great. but in the last month, we couldn't work with one of our co-founders and i decided to fire him. it was super hard and i hadn't done anything harder in my life. but i did it and for now, i'm satisfied with that decision.

i've written the principles (of communication, content, etc.) and discussed them with the team. so we reached a point at which everyone is trying to treat based on the principles and in my opinion, it's gonna build an amazing culture, which is the main factor of building a great product in my mind.

and after all, i really love our startup's vision. it's something that i do all my medical school work to have time to work on our startup! it's even brighter than mathematics in my mind! if you know me, you also can understand the deep meaning behind this comparison. :)

but you may ask why everything is fucked up. i will tell you. our biggest problem is that our plans aren't done correctly. we have a team of students with a lot of exams, commitments, and many other things and for these reasons, we can not do almost anything based on our plans. we plan and plan and plan, but nothing goes based on it. we have done one week of work in about two months and it's super hard for me to think and deal with this amount of being bad.

i know that it's totally my responsibility to make it happen. i don't want to victimize myself and i don't know where we're going to. but we'll make it. we'll build a great team, even with these part-time students. we'll build a great culture, even in a place between surprisingly bad cultures and we'll reach our vision, even when no one is committed enough to their vision. i know it and you’ll read in the next updates.

bye for now :)

sina
july 12, 2024