7 things I wish I knew before I failed with my EdTech startup

2 years ago I built an EdTech startup to $25K/mo but I couldn’t scale it more and it failed!

Here are 7 lessons learned that helped me build a new startup to 7 figures:

1/ Choosing a market

Mistake: picking a small market to slowly expand

I thought a small local market would be just a starting point. I wanted to switch to a vast market later.

Insight: entering a new market is comparable to launching a new product from scratch.

2/ Business model

Mistake: making a unique business model

Unique startup ideas rarely succeed.

Insight: inventor ≠ entrepreneur.

3/ Validation

Mistake: judging the success of the business model by the first sale

Now we've scaled only after building stable "manual" sales + maintaining a low churn rate

Insight: the success of the first sale ≠ the business model's success

4/ Problem-solving

Mistake: spending too much time on tasks I understand best

I spent too much time on product development.

Meanwhile, the bottleneck was in marketing and sales.

Insight: your startup won’t grow if you focus only on tasks you’re comfortable doing -> prioritize bottlenecks

5/ Audience

Mistake: wide audience

Insight: sell to everyone = sell to no one

6/ Growth

Mistake: business growth is the key to the success

Insight: to level up your business, you first need to level up your head

7/ Decision making

Mistake: trust the experts

I listened too much to the experts and neglected my own opinion.

It didn't work.

Insight: keep in mind advice from experts/mentors but always trust your way

Thanks for reading this long post!

By the way, my current startup is called Insquad:) We match rockstar remote senior developers from all over the world with great opportunities.

Feel free to reach out to me if you are looking for a great full-time remote software job or for a top-skilled vetted talent💪