Episode 7: Unemployment post-entrepreneurship

Good morning and welcome back to the Nadir and Up,

In the last episode we concluded our GetGuided journey, where we talked about and analysed the mistakes I did, and what I would do differently if I started again. But what has happened after I decided to move on from GetGuided? What have Ibeen doing for the last 6 months? Lets dive into all hat in this episode of “Unemployment post entrepreneurship”.

As you would guess from intro, straight after Covid has hit and we lost all our clients, I found myself without a job, whilst still having to figure out what to do with GetGuided. I knew that we had a very good tech that we could sell, however with the whole industry being frozen many things were uncertain. In fact the idea of selling the company came to us early in the year, and with light talks with some partners we had an approximate price tag of mid-range 5 figures. However as soon as the situation got worse globally, we lost those partners as well. With the monthly server and etc costs, some small loans, and not having cash to pay rent I needed to sell at an offer that would be received first. I was optimistic, but the reality was not so much. After several months we had an offer for 4 figures. However, the person willing to buy was having many requirements, which would end up costing me more if I kept it for longer. With uncertainty I talked to out investors and we tried to figure out what to do.

The whole process allowed me to gain new perspective about several issues. First of all, once more I was convinced that I chose the right people to surround myself, as all of them — from the team members to investors supported the sale of the company at any price that I saw reasonable and take the payment, if any was left, to support myself. That was very humbling and heart-warming experience. The second thing I noticed was that if you are going to shut down the company the company, it is not very easy. It is true that the documentation is easy, but the process where you have to close all the accounts, which costs money, that you can not keep the technology for other projects and that you have to go through confirmation process from others — can be time consuming. You obviously can declare yourself bankrupt, but that will affect your future opportunities, be that in entrepreneurship, job market or credit score. Final thing is that even if you have an amazing tech, that people who are starting similar business can use to fastrack their product journey, it probably will not be valued. People always have a sense of ownership, where they want to build things exactly the way they want and that they fully own, even if takes more money and time for them.

So, what happens then if you practically have an amazing tech that you do not want to throw away, but also right now no one wants to buy it? You start looking for solutions. I kept investing from my own pocket to keep the company alive, yet I still have some loans to cover. Besides that, our investors are keen to invest and buy more shares in the company, where they can use the tech for other portfolio projects. That solution, for me, is the most optimal one, because it is quick and costless one. One more factor, that I have not disclosed is that, over the last 6 months I still tried different routes to make money for the company and myself. These included doing Fiverr projects, selling GetGuided designed and working on freelance project orders. Considering everything said above, I decided to keep the company alive with the hope of getting investment from the investors and that will cover all the costs. The process still ongoing, so I will update you in the next episode.

Now, we know the confusing situation with GetGuided, let’s focus on myself a bit more. All these years I have been a generalist, where I did bit of everything. As an early-stage founder that is your destiny. Unfortunately, the corporate world does not world like that, everyone has their own role and speciality. Of course you are expected to know some things about other fields and roles as well, but generally you focus on one thing and do it well. Unless you are a product manager. I have heard about this role from my co-founder, when I asked what should I do next. From childhood I am passionate about building and creating things, I enjoy working on switching between projects and I love working with people from different backgrounds. This is in essence why I became an entrepreneur, which I would love to in a corporate role as well. That is how I would define product management, an intrapreneur who facilitates the creation of amazing products by working with people from all divisions and departments. The more I looked into it them more I wanted to become a product manager. If you are a non-technical founder-entrepreneur, I would advise you to look into product management as well. So, I started preparing for it.

What did I do? First, I took a Udemy course called “Introduction to product management” which gave me all the basic knowledge about the role. There were things that I knew already, things I had no idea about and things that I kinda knew but needed to learn more about. Then I bought courses focused on the parts that I did not know or needed to strengthen. These were courses focused on UX/UI design, project management, B2B sales, data analysis and others. However, courses were not enough, so in parallel I was reading a lot. Things I read over the last 6 months included various articles about product management, product building, customer-centric design and others. Some of the good books I would recommend are: “Jobs to be done”, “Sprint”, “User stories applied” and “Lean Startup”. Besides directly working toward goal of becoming a PM (short for Product manager), I also took courses on drawing to get my creative mind working and was doing daily workouts to keep healthy. You may not realise, but having physical and mental health and strength is extremely important in job search process. You should not abandon your health.

Whilst reading and learning and trying to stay healthy, I was also applying to jobs, sadly unsuccessfully. Why so and what I did to change that will be in the next episode. We will also analyse how I was coping financially, how Covid made everything even more difficult and where I am now and today. So, if you are looking for an episode full of drama tune in next week on Sunday evening. Remember to check Anchor channel for audio version and check Teespring link in the description for apparel by GetGuided. Thanks for listening, stay safe, talk to you later.