case study 1 - clickstyle.com.au (just another two-sided marketplace)

• jumped at the opportunity too quick because I was too scared to work on my own ideas.

• tried to solve the problem I wasn't excited about.

• tried to get a .com domain so we could go global one day. ended up with a .com.au domain, and we still failed, in merely one country.

• had an "equity vs contribution" doubt since day 1, but didn't speak up, letting the resentment build up inside.

• rolled my own admin portal while being oblivious to things like retool.com and react-admin.

• spent time to learn yet another framework meteor.js though I would be totally fine with the good old express.js (nothing wrong with meteor.js, nothing wrong with express.js either).

case study 2 - fuutr.co (just another e-scooter app)

• jumped at the opportunity too quick (again) because the co-founder said a VC promised a 10m round as long as we got the MVP built, and I would be a CTO leading an army of engineers.

• tried to solve the problem I wasn't excited about.

• worked on the project fulltime, unpaid, meanwhile providing a family of 4 plus mortgage. thought I would be mentally tough enough, but got stressed out 4 months in.

• found out my co-founder was a natural hustler, thought it was indispensable to a successful startup, without realising I got hustled too.

• thought we could win city council trial over Lime with a pixel-perfect app and more feature set.

• rolled my own admin portal (again) while being oblivious to things like retool.com and react-admin.