Thread by @leonagano

I failed, failed and failed again 🤦🏽

My lessons learned

• Start with something you're familiar with
• Engage with potential users
• Mainstream news ≠ success guaranteed

(Thread…)

Moved to the UK, now what? 🇬🇧

I wanted to launch a startup and learn English. Google Campus was my go-to place.

Spent days browsing websites.

As I was travelling often, I had an idea. An app. To list private cars, public transport and taxis in the world’s major airports.

1/

Here comes Airportrs: the solution to my problems 🛫

• 1 or 2 months building it
• I cold-emailed journalists

It was a Sunday afternoon, Suddenly I saw a massive traffic.

Excited!

Airportrs is a hit!! We’re on LATimes. A travel journalist used and wrote about it!

2/

After 2 or 3 days the traffic had gone. "I don’t know what’s happening. It’s a good product" 🤷‍

Spent a few more months pushing it. Until accepting that...

I had failed. I made £100 from Ads in more than 1 year.

3/

New ideas 💡

• InBrewers - Dir. of UK breweries
• HotelsForVisitors - Embedded maps of BnBs near events
• AllergiesAndKids - Dir. of foods for allergic kids
• Prezzing - Automated PR tool
• NoAgeismInTech - Tech Job board for 35+

I failed in each one of them.

4/

I’m done. Need a job. Need income 💷

I don’t have a CV. Where do I begin?

What are my skills? Software engineer? Outdated. Software Development process? Outdated.

I moved abroad, don’t have connections. My English speaking is not good enough.

I made myself unemployable.

5/

Being a founder = sometimes being stuck in admin tasks, financial tasks, nothing-related-to-your-skills tasks 🤯

I became a generalist.

Am I an Indie hacker?

8 months later, got a job as a Project Manager/Product Owner. Sports Industry. I like it.

6/

But I found love helping people. Sharing lessons learned.❤️

ps: I've immense admiration for each one of founders listed. I don't want to public shame at all.

@indiehackers let's help others? Share your failed stories.

/fin