My Startup Just got Funded – What the F**k do I do next!?

The first rule of fight club is don’t talk about fight club

The first rule of startups is don’t talk about how little clue you have what to do immediately after receiving seed funding

Not knowing what you have to do next is a badge of honour. Treasure it, grip it then cast aside all aspersions of what it means for your future.

Panic, confusion, concern and excitement, are intriguing bedfellows in the conscious mind. Disruption of sleep inserts tiredness to the mix brewing a concoction in a cauldron of overwhelming emotions. Happiness bounds unconstrained and uncontrollable while doubt and despair insidiously wait ready to pull the rug from beneath you.

Welcome to the most exciting time of your life, cloaked in an afterglow of unimagined difficulty guaranteed to linger for the next decade.

Your dreams have come true, promising that your favourite worst nightmares inexplicably arise between brief lapses of success. The eternal optimist is challenged to imagine what a vision of success looks like, implementing a plan based on pure speculation rather than hard science. That’s what they leave out of the story of overwhelming successes – the reality of what it actually takes to win. The depth of commitment needed to make it through not just each day, but every moment which threatens to derail your hopes and dreams.

Every threat, perceived or imagined, provides interesting respite to the existential challenges facing the thing you egotistically demanded funding for. You have convinced investors to believe in you while personally consumed by self doubt which is never communicated due to the scale of challenge ahead.

Safety and comfort are gone, welcome to a world of your own creation, where everything, good or bad, depends on decisions you make now.

Not knowing what to do, or having any specific role or responsibilities is simultaneously the most liberating feeling in the world and the most paralysing. You have a million things you know you need to do, with no indication of what will allow you to progress the furthest fastest. You have no assistance with deciding what needs to be done, just a billion things that all need to be done immediately. You have a trillion competing requirements all which acts as bottlenecks to achieving other things, and an ever expanding things that must get done. Relaxation is a thing of the past, slaughtered by an unquenchable thirst for progress.

And then you ask other to take a leap of faith with you, attach their wagons and career success to you and trust in your ability to lead them to the promised land. Nothing is as haunting as the look of joy on the face of your first hire with unquestioned belief in the narrative you have perfected while seducing speculative investors.

Initially it was only you depending on the success of this venture, now another livelihood is contingent on your ability to not screw things up. Families, mortgages and sustenance are contingent on your ability to lead and make the correct decisions.

Now what? isn’t just modus operandi for every moment of your waking life. It is the question that must be answered by everyone else partnering with you in this quest as well. You are the bottleneck for bottlenecks slowing down the progress of everyone else working towards goals as well.

And you must translate a vision clear only in your mind.

Of what you have little preparation for.

Of which you aren’t sure how to survive.

Every slight is in judgement of your ability to achieve what you promise or an indictment of your choices.

If it fails it is all your fault, if you succeed it’s because of the team you built

Everyone knows the story.

Billion £ businesses meteoric overnight success! Nothing is more compelling than an idea that evolves to eats the world.

That’s technology!

What that fails to acknowledge is the struggle. We all like to hear the glory and imagine ourselves as the central character, caring less about the 8 years of struggle required to become a sensation.

But we also miss the lack of clarity.

It’s like jumping out a plane without a parachute

Your business is the parts you think you need to create a parachute before you hit the ground. How you do it defines whether you will survive.

And you only have your self to blame if you can’t.

You see the parachutes others built for themselves on the way to the ground, you hear about those who failed and came crashing back to earth. You can even ask them question on how they did it.

Ultimately, the buck stops with you.

It all rests on how you implement it, the materials, skills and expertise you have brought and the team you have convinced to jump with you.

Today is the first official day of Nexves

My parachute is the future of banking, a better future for all consumers is the goal — a distributed platform which enables us all to work together.

Jump with me

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