Have you royally ruined up your start-up? Here are lessons to learn

The previous month turned my whole belief system on its head. I realized that I had never been so wrong in my entire life. It was a rare incident of reflection that will stay with me forever.

“Make the car run before racing it on a race track.”

Vijay Anand of The Startup Centre gave me this brilliant piece of advice when I just started Zeading in August 2016. Because of my tragic influence on myself, I chose to unconsciously ignore it and, worse, gravely misunderstand it. I had already failed spectacularly working on my previous startup three years back while I was still in college. I thought I was already aware of and was an expert on the mistakes entrepreneurs generally make.

And that is where I was wrong.

Never ever think that you’ve nailed it
 

Zeading was meant to be a blogging platform that was supposed to make traditional reading obsolete. With our flagship feature?—the Zen Mode—I had invented a way of using Javascript to present articles in an animated video-like interface. With HTML5’s SpeechSynthesis API, we had added support for voice over as well? so it could literally read the whole thing for you. It was an immersive way of reading stories, and our demos did well in our beta run.

 

Managing a fully bootstrapped startup while working full time professionally made me more appreciative of any free time I get. I began reading more to fill up the voids in my mental capacities and became more accepting and corrective of my own flaws as a leader, engineer, and entrepreneur. I believe the setback is temporary and the things that I’ve learned will help me get back to doing what I really enjoy?—making amazing shit. 

This is an excerpt from the article published on Tech In Asia. You can read the full article here