When I started my first company in 2015, I thought I knew what I was getting into. I had read all the startup books, followed all the right people on Twitter, and had a pitch deck that investors said was 'compelling.' What I didn't have was any idea how wrong I was about almost everything.

Ten years and three companies later, I've learned that the most valuable lessons aren't in books. They're in the mistakes you make, the relationships you build, and the moments when everything falls apart and you have to figure out how to put it back together.

The Myth of the Visionary Founder

We love stories about founders who had a singular vision and pursued it relentlessly until the world bent to their will. These stories are mostly fiction. The reality is messier: pivots, compromises, happy accidents, and a lot of adapting to what you learn along the way.

Your first idea isn't your company. Your company is what emerges from colliding that idea with reality, over and over, until something sticks.

My first startup began as a B2C app. It became a B2B platform. Then an API. Then something I couldn't have imagined at the start. Each pivot felt like failure at the time. In retrospect, they were the company finding its true form.

People Over Product

Early in my career, I obsessed over product. Features, designs, roadmaps. I thought if the product was good enough, everything else would follow. I was wrong.

The companies that succeeded weren't the ones with the best products. They were the ones with the best teams. People who trusted each other, challenged each other, and stayed when things got hard.

• Hire for values alignment, not just skills
• Invest in relationships before you need them
• Fire fast when it's not working—for everyone's sake
• Your co-founder relationship is your most important asset

The Long Game

Startups are often framed as sprints. Move fast. Grow fast. Exit fast. But the founders I admire most are playing a longer game. They're building institutions, not just companies. They're thinking in decades, not quarters.

This shift in perspective changes everything. You make different decisions when you're optimizing for the long term. You invest in culture. You take care of your people. You build things that last.

Sustainability Over Speed

I burned out in my second company. Badly. The kind of burnout where you can't get out of bed, can't make decisions, can't remember why you started. It took months to recover.

Now I know: sustainable pace isn't weakness. It's strategy. You can't win a marathon by sprinting the whole way. The founders who last are the ones who take care of themselves.

What I'd Tell My 2015 Self

If I could go back and give myself one piece of advice, it would be this: Trust the process, but question everything. The journey will be nothing like you expect. That's not a bug—it's a feature.

Every failure teaches you something. Every success contains the seeds of the next challenge. Keep going, stay curious, and remember why you started.