So its been a year and 2 weeks since we launched hubrif.com for an open beta phase. We got some humbling feedback from some amazing people on this forum at that time and I usually fall back to those kind words when it seems like we are not heading anywhere.
African Short Film VoD platform comes to life in record time! Thanks to TechCabal Radar.
Short story, Its been hard. Very hard as a matter of fact. firstly, let me say I salute anyone running a startup in this country. Beating all forces against you moving to that next milestone is worthy of praise. So either you are already generating revenue or you havenāt even figured out how that is going to be achieved, as long as you are still standing, I honestly and proudly dab for you!
Let me quickly move on. At the first few months, things were somehow smooth. my Co-founder then @johne was an amazing and understanding partner. Unfortunately, he had to leave and move on to other things on a personal ground. Around that time, I was lucky to have found an investor( donāt think we raised some dollars oo, but we were able to get some cash that could help us run for a few months) who also came on-board full time as our Team Lead. We had to build Hubrif again from the scratch! our former platform couldnāt sustain us any longer and so we had to migrate. Now that we were without a tech Co-founder and couldnāt find one as fast as possible as we had a deadline to move, we finally had to hire a developer. He didnāt come cheap
Lesson 1: Never you take the work of your Tech Co-founder for granted. No matter how grandiose your idea is, as long as you need tech to bring it to life, then tech remains the foundation and backbone hence, you have a duty to always reason with your tech partner anyday anytime.
We had some few partnership propositions, some we had to reject as the terms and conditions werenāt all that favorable for us in the long run, at least my partner felt so. I argued and argued as to why we shouldnāt take such deals and at the end, I just rested my case hoping that one day I blame my partner if it turns out that we fail because we didnāt take it. That hasnāt happened yet and If we eventually fail in the future, It definitely wont be as a result of this. lol.
Lesson 2: Donāt ever rush to strike a deal even if your instinct tells you so. Your instincts might be wrong. Base your judgment on facts and figures. In the case where that is not readily available, you can do 2 things. Walk away (which is insane to do by the way) or now go with your instincts. But remember to tell yourself that you will stand by the repercussion of such decision either it makes or destroys you.
A potential Investor called me up in late December last year for a meetup with my team. I still donāt know how he got my number and even though i didnāt take him seriously initially, we decided to honour the meeting. When we got to one of his residential buildings, we were shocked! he is a very wealth man. We were all very excited at the prospect of raising some dollars to finally take Hubrif to the next level. Let me cut the long story short, He is a one I call a Toxic Investor. It took us about 3 months to realize we have been chasing the wind and whatever he had in mind was never going to be realized. We left Hubrif for 3 good months and we are paying the price now.
Lesson 3: Donāt let anything distract you from your business. It can be very tempting especially if money is involved but have it at the back of your mind that consistent focus, drive and push is the life-bone of your startup.
We had many more distractions and challenges and I hope to be sharing them soon too. Will love to read about the experiences of startup founders too. Cheers.