How I lost almost everything after my first startup failed, and ended up building a no-code tool

Hey! 👋

I'm Sylvain cofounder of Vuzers.

And this is the story of how my first startup failed, how I lost all of my savings (about $25,000), my health, my family life as I almost got divorced — all in the span of about 24 months — what I learned from it and how I ended up building a no-code tool.

Here's some background:

• I started my first company with a friend as the CTO and, me as the business guy.
• This happened 4 years ago.
• We didn't have a business experience beforehand.

Okay, here are some of our biggest mistakes and what we learnt from them:

1) Getting Started

As totally newbies in the startup world, we spent around three weeks choosing a name/domain, filling intellectual properties papers, then getting a logo designed, and forming an incorporated company when we just got our idea.

All of this was done before we had a clear idea of what we wanted to create or even before we were sure someone really wanted it.

Time and money were wasted here. In most circumstances, for a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), the name and logo will be irrelevant. You always can change it after.

But for sure, before you choose a business name, a domain, a logo, or legally open a business (all of the things that most people get caught up in), think about validating your idea with real customers first.

2) Solve a real problem

Too many entrepreneurs invent a problem to solve. And if you do, you will fail for sure.

Good products solve real problems that have an impact on real people.

Our first startup was all about Augmented Reality.

Do you remember this trend? 😅

It was all over the Web: Apple, Snapchat, Google, Facebook. Everyone was talking about AR and VR. But 5 years later, no one talks about it anymore. Oh yes, there is still Facebook and its Metaverse! 😁
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So ask yourself: “What problem does my startup or idea solve, and how painful is that problem?” Think seriously about this question, because the answer may save you hours, days, weeks, months, or years of your life.

3) Listen and talk to your customers

Not talking and listening to our customers early on was one of our biggest mistakes.

We just kept building a product nobody wanted. And we fell into the "Just one more feature" trap.

In fact, when you're just starting out as an entrepreneur, a lot of your early success will hinge on your ability to listen and engage effectively with your customers. This will help you gather feedback and know your audience better in order to build a better product.

Lack of such feedback may leave your startup with a product that doesn't fit your customer needs.

So make sure you engage with your customers on a regular basis, analyze their feedback and suggestions and update your product to build a product they love.

Sad ending

Of course, after 24 months, we ran out of cash and we had to discontinue our company.

It was really tough for both of us. We had put so much energy into this startup that we were exhausted. 😵

We were down:

• We lost all our savings.
• We both had health problems due to stress.
• I almost got divorced.
• And most important, we missed beautiful moments with our family and friends because we were too busy to run our startup.

As a result, I no longer wanted to hear about the world of startups for 2 years.

Failing a startup is like losing a loved one in a way. When you realize that your startup is gone and it's never coming back, you are in mourning.

The pain of losing a business is not just about a loss of income, but can also affect your self-esteem.

But time heals pain. And after a while with my friend, our entrepreneurial spirit and desire to undertake returned. Because in the end, being entrepreneurs is the only thing we love doing.

But this time, we'll do things differently!

A new beginning

The best way to stop mourning a failed business is to start another one!

After months and months of brainstorming, we decided to scratch our own itch.

What if we built a tool that will allow founders and companies to understand customer needs? Listen and talk to them? And build genuine relationships with them?

So we started to work hard, very hard. And a few weeks later, Vuzers was born! 💪

We're building Vuzers, a new video engagement platform for makers and no-coders.

We launched our MVP in march as a side project and started asking for feedback from Indiehackers, and start-ups on Twitter, Facebook groups, and Slack communities.

Vuzers is so simple. You don't need to know how to code. All you have to do is record your video, design your landing page in 1 minute to collect responses and share it with your customers. And voilà!

We had great feedback from our users during our beta. So we decided to go full-time.

We are shipping new features every week. We will launch on Product Hunt soon. But before we are planning to run a small Lifetime deal campaign.

We are excited to see what the future holds!

And you, did your first startup fail?

Cheers,
Sylvain