Burnout
We met a billionaire.
At an event in Zurich, we had the incredible opportunity to speak with Tom Preston-Werner, co-founder of GitHub, whose insights were invaluable. We also connected with a former Apple Product Manager who emphasized that building a great product isn’t about flashy tech but asking the right questions. A week later, while giving an update to 1517, we also realized we were missing key answers and lacked a solid go-to-market plan, highlighting critical gaps in our approach.
There were huge gaps and this is what we realised:
- We were building in isolation, missing out on feedback from our target audience.
- A solid go-to-market plan and a clear distribution strategy is as important as building a good product.
- Our focus on tech and vision led us to overlook critical aspects, particularly understanding our users’ workflows and needs.
So we began customer discovery.
- We sneaked into WeWorks across the city to interview people(we realised no one likes donuts).
- We cold-called and emailed enterprises about their workflows (and even walked into real estate offices in West Hampstead).
- We reached out to and talked to everyone we could, sent a bunch of surveys to fill and even unsuccessfully tried social media.
The six weeks between mid-July and the end of August were, without a doubt, the most exhausting period we’ve experienced. It was a relentless cycle of ideation, invalidation, and more ideation. We were pushing hard to find the right fit for our product, but looking back, it took a serious toll on us. The burnout was real, and at times, it felt hopeless—like we were chasing something just out of reach.
As August came to a close, so did our time with the amazing team we’d built over the summer. With the season ending and the lease on our flat expiring, we decided it was time to take a step back and re-assess. We wanted to reflect on what we truly wanted to create. After countless ideas and iterations, we found ourselves questioning whether we were headed in the right direction or if we were pivoting into something entirely new—and whether that was really the path we wanted to pursue.
Summer 2024 Updates:
Part 1: The origin story
Part 2: Build Time!
Part 3: Burnout