I’m going to be quite frank about what’s going on in my professional life right now.
I’m almost halfway through my runway, before I’ll start “Bleeding cash” meaning touching my well earned strategic savings. In Germany, there is ALG 1 – a social benefit that pays you 9-12 months of 60% of your previous salary. That’s so much better than in the other countries, it does give you time to re-focus, but honestly…
Real change takes minimally a year. Mind shifts take time. Finding the right people takes time. Keeping sane takes time. Going nuts for a little bit, going off the rails – that all costs time.
So, the dilemma I’m facing is:
Plan A) Build a tech startup in deepfake protection, authenticity & trust. As a non-tech person, I need a technical co-founder. If they drop off, I’m back to square one.
Plan B) Generate revenue independently before the runway ends. My diverse background helps here – multiple languages, insane learning curve, swiss knife research skills, highly developed people skills, all that.
When I work on Plan B), it benefits plan A) strongly. Because I basically upskill in being a leader and I meet awesome people.
I have a fantastic team of potential co-founders and volunteers, but nothing is sealed yet. Here are the biggest points of concern:
1) No full-time availability and commitment
People who want to be a co-founder but will only get on board when the funding is secured and only then, quit their jobs. Egg-chicken problem.
I get that quitting a job is scary. But while they keep their illusory safety by keeping the job, I am running through my runway.
What to do? Think about yourself first. Because this is what they are doing. Invest just enough so it’s a fair exchange for their limited time and mental space. .
2) Not a great match in working together
If you enter a co-foundership, you are entering a marriage. You’ll go through shit together, spend many many hours together, fight, win, lose. And if there is no “personal” match – like, literally, you are just not excited about the work session together or you just don’t get your creative juices running when working together – that magic will most likely not appear.
After years in corporate, I’ve been in enough storming-phase teams to know – if it’s forced, it sucks.
Now in the position of a leader (of my own life haha), I struggle with this. In a tech space, I cannot build without a strong tech team. But if they are not available or not fun to work with, you might be wasting time and most importantly, simply not enjoying your time.
I choose fun and challenging, challenge must not suck. Challenge is good.
Also here: Think about yourself first. There are perfect founders out there, for all of us. No need to enter any of those highly complex founder commitments if you feel that it won’t rock.
If you’ve been through this mess and come out the other side, I’m all ears. And if you’re in it right now – let’s commiserate. At least we can waste time together efficiently.
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