I failed, failed, failed, and failed again

My lessons learned

• Start with something you are familiar with
• Engage with potential users first
• Featured on mainstream news is not success guaranteed

I moved to the UK, now what?

Well, one of the reasons for my moving was to be closer to the startup scene and learn English. Going to Google Campus was the first step.

Spent days browsing the web. In a hope to have ideas.

As I was travelling often, I had an idea for an app. To list private transfers, public transport and taxis in the world’s major airports.

Here comes Airportrs: the solution to my problems

Learning from the past, this time I spent only 1 or 2 months building it. Then, I cold-emailed journalists (wanted to launch fast).

It was a Sunday afternoon. I saw massive traffic.

Excited!

Airportrs is a hit!! We’re on LATimes. A travel journalist used, loved it and wrote about it

After 2 or 3 days the traffic has gone. I don’t know what’s happening. Why? It’s a good product.

Spent a few more months pushing it. Until accepting that...
I had failed. I made £100 from Ads in more than 1 year.

New ideas are cropping up

I need to launch fast and fail fast to learn more. So I did it.

• inBrewers - directory of UK breweries and beers
• HotelsForVisitors - maps of Airbnbs near events. It was embedded on events’ websites. 10 websites used it, but it didn’t make it through
• VGMusics - directory of musics from famous games
• AllergiesAndKids - directory of products and foods for kids with allergies
• Prezzing - PR tool to automate reports
• NoAgeismInTech - Job board for 35+ in tech. Hit #1 on HN for 1 day. Featured on TheTelegraph. Some good companies posted jobs. Also didn’t make it though

This is to name a few of my attempts.

I failed in each one of them

I’m done. I need to look for a job

“Too much wasted time. I’m not learning much, my personal relationships are not going well and the money is short”

I hadn’t updated my CV for more than 10 years. Where do I begin? What role should I be aiming for?

I started listing my skills. Software engineering? Outdated. Software Development? Outdated as well.

I moved abroad, don’t have connections here. My English speaking is not good enough.

I made myself unemployable

Being a founder = sometimes being stuck in admin tasks, financial tasks, nothing-related-to-your-skills tasks.

I’m not a specialist, but rather, a generalist.

After 8 months I finally landed a job. In a motor sport company. I do like the sports industry and sports in general.

But what I love is helping people, giving value, learning new things every day.

Ps.: I have great admiration for each founder in the image. Don’t want to public shame them but to show that fail sometimes is part of the growing process.

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