⚔ 2023 from the perspective of a startup founder ⚔
Let's begin a new year knowing that we are much better than who we were in 2023..
We started the year off with an incredible start. Our product reached a powerful feature set.
We moved to Tallinn to focus on the European market 🇪🇪
The SaaS category of the Product Hunt Golden Kitty Awards 2022 featured us as a finalist. It was a good sign.
We got an Acquisition offer from a public company in the US. As a result, we have become much more motivated 💪
One of the most helpless moments of my life occurred when our country was struck by an earthquake. We did everything we could for all our loved ones.
It was important to keep going. We've announced numerous successful features. All our attention was focused on gaining faster activation of users after we had established our user acquisition strategy.
The numbers for the first quarter were excellent 🚀
Our focus was also distracted by many side issues during the second quarter. Despite this, our focus was on sales. But whenever we spoke with potential customers, a "roadmapping" blockage would appear.
Even though we solved the acquisition and activation for critical accounts, the sales cycle was taking longer than we expected.
In June, we discussed all the things we weren't doing or didn't do well enough. We haven't experimented enough on our website strategy. There were parts of our business model that we did not like. And it required a lot of resources to fight change management in potential customers 🤦♂️
We have been working remotely since day one. That's why we organized a retreat in July to get together with our team.
It was a 4-day deep analysis and rest period for our team. And finally, we decided to pivot. And we started a very efficient pivot process.
With Roadmape, we are entering the same market again with a brand new strategy. We had exciting learning about our market and our users, thanks to Producter, and we were more than excited to tackle the roadmapping challenge in a vertical and focused way.
I designed the fastest and best product of my life, Roadmape, and we all went about building something more customizable than anyone had ever experienced before. ⚡
We met with hundreds of product people one-on-one. Based on three different surveys, we gained very valuable insights.
Afterward, we started to raise a new round. The investment opportunity is still available and we already have some commitments ready.
There were many lessons to be learned this year for entrepreneurs who appeared in the investment world. And there will be in 2024 as well. 💵
Last but not least, it was the most difficult year of my work life. It was a great experience for me to learn so many things. It was exciting to try so many new things. I inspired people and was inspired by them.
I know that there will be a lot of challenges in 2024. The most important thing is to keep the same excitement and determination just like the first day. Let's begin a new year knowing that we are much better than who we were in 2023...