Announcement-ish

We recently closed a $1.8M seed round from numerous very well-known VCs and Angels from both the US and Canada. The round was closed more than 2 months ago, but I was very undecided about making an announcement. 

The reason for my uncertainty is that I had mixed feelings after the close. While I am super happy about the round and what it means for our company. Instead of feeling a sense of accomplishment, I felt more pressure. Whatever excitement I thought I was going to get, vanished almost immediately as the anxiety from the challenges ahead starts to creep in. As glamorous it might appear from the outside, as the CEO of the company, it’s inevitable to feel the extra weight of the newly added responsibilities. Not only do I have to deliver for myself, for my team, we now have to deliver for the people who put their hard-earned dollars into the business. 

In the end, the best way I figured on how to announce the round, is to be as transparent and as real as possible. I don’t want to simply share the “exciting” side of fundraising because it is not real. There is a lot more going on behind the scenes than just the usual headline. I want to share about the paths we took and hopefully shed light on the realities of running our startup.

I left Sonder in April 2015, it took us 4 years to raise our first outside capital. There are several reasons why we took so long to raise. 

Fundraising is not the only way.

Instead of raising money right away, I wanted to prove the concept by bootstrapping the business. If it works, I will get a better term. If it doesn’t, I should not raise money anyway. Since money was hard to come by, it forced us to be extremely frugal and resourceful. What I didn’t foresee, is how much longer it took for us to be “ready”. 

Some might argue that money would have allowed us to grow faster; to test and fail faster. Perhaps in a different context, I could have done it in a different way. But the reality is, we didn’t take the path of fundraising from the get-go and it turned out to be ok. 

Being a solo founder is not ideal.

My “co-founder” decided to take an internship while building Guiker only a month after I left Sonder. It was clear that he was not the right fit, so I let him go. Being the solo-founder out of the circumstance, I constantly needed to juggle between fundraising and operating the business. I chose to focus on building the business not only because it was working but also because that’s what I was better at. 

Having a great team definitely helped me along the way. They allowed me to slowly step away from the day-to-day operations and focus on fundraising. However, raising money is even more challenging as a solo-founder. It is a big red flag among many investors and some of them won’t even consider investing.

At the end of the day, I had to play with the cards that were dealt. I wasn’t going to let any individuals determine the success or failure of our company, no matter how important his/her role is. Multiple co-founders are obviously better than solo-founder. But solo founder is 1000X better than having shitty co-founders

We don’t quite fit into any particular hot trend.

Over the last 4 years, there were several hot trends in the VC world: Fintech, VR/AR, AI, Blockchain… A lot of people thought I missed out on a lot of good opportunities because I studied Mathematics and Computational Finance. Compared to most people, I had a much stronger background to get into AI, Blockchain, and Fintech. 

However, I did not start Guiker to fit into any trend. Our goal was never to just make a quick buck. Our business is built to solve a real-world problem. Whether it fits into a trend or not can help us gain momentum but it should not determine our direction. 

Interestingly, Prop. Tech has gained some momentum over the past year. I suppose it helped us in some way. Now that WeWork has blown up, perhaps the road ahead will be more difficult. But these are not, and should not be the reason why we started our business. If fundraising is easier, great. If not, grind. 

Fundraising is hard.

I seriously started fundraising in summer 2018. I was lucky enough to have a great mentor who’ve raised more than $100M. Under his guidance, I was able to polish my deck, refine my pitch, receive great warm intros to high-quality investors and have someone pointing out all the traps and faux-pas of fundraising. Unfortunately for me, I walked into all the traps and committed all the faux-pas… I didn’t like the deals I was offered. Instead of sticking to the negotiation process, I arrogantly decided to burn the bridge because I had “options” on the table. As quickly as the hype built up initially, the crash happened twice as fast. By November 2018, it was clear that everyone left the table. 

After failing to secure any funding, we had no choice but to keep grinding. Christmas dinner 2018 felt more like the Last Supper. The moral was extremely low. In fact, all 3 oldest members of the team subsequently left the company. Although all of them left due to personal reasons, I would be foolish to think that it didn’t have anything to do with my failure to deliver. Fortunately, we have a decent business. The cashflow kept us alive. And we have lived to see another day. 

At the end of the day, no matter how many books I’ve read, no matter how much advice I’ve received, there is no better teacher in life than reality. There are certain experiences in life that can only be experienced by failures. There are certain walls in life that you simply have to hit… Like my man Tyson said: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.” 

Building a great business is even harder. 

If there’s anything I learned from the last 4 years, it would be that anything worthwhile takes time to build. Too often, we are drowned by the idea of overnight success. We are constantly bombarded by news of X company raised Y millions in Z months. We tend to compare ourselves to competitions who are seemingly growing at 10x our speed and hitting every right note. But the reality is, under every headline, there are layers of shit made of confused leadership, complex interpersonal relationships, ugly politics, chaotic management etc… 

Over the years, I’ve witnessed the growth and downfall of many startups. Some have never raised money and some have raised a lot of money. No matter the evaluation or the size of the company, the one commonality for all the successful ones is that they are fundamentally sound businesses. With the recent downfalls of WeWork, it is more clear than ever that startups just like any other business, need to be built on top of solid foundations. 

At Guiker, the first layer of the foundation starts with numbers. Our current and future business model makes sense mathematically and logically, which leads me to believe that it is possible. The second layer would be our mission and vision, aka: Is it worth pursuing? And the third and final layer of the foundation is the people: Do we have the right people, driven by the right mission, turning something possible into a reality? 

In fact, we are still building that foundation. Every single person that we bring on for the next few years will have the opportunity to shape the future of our company. Unlike many other workplaces' self claims, Guiker is not a Utopian startup environment. It is a very challenging workplace with many problems to be solved. It is a place where the Kool-Aid is made of tap water with a heavy dose of reality. It is where talented individuals with characters are brought together by the actual work and what it means. 

The goal of this announcement is not to talk about our accomplishments, because we don’t celebrate small wins. What I hope to achieve by sharing part of our journey, is to connect with the right people. People who possess the set of skills that can help us keep building our foundation. People who value transparency, embrace the difficulties and thrive in a chaotic and challenging environment. People who have the audacity to dream and the conviction to believe in their ability to change the future. 

Last but not least, I would like to thank all the people who believed in us and supported us. Most importantly, I want to thank all the people who were/are part of us. It took a special kind of people to have endured the journey we took to get to where we are today. Especially with a leader who often failed at motivating and showing appreciation. It's your beliefs that gave me the courage and the strength to continue through our darkest days. You are all I have.

Sincerely,