My first startup failed – Here are 8 lessons I've learned

I was 21 when I graduated college in 2018. Five years later, I had built and lost a $7.5M ARR marketing company. Here's the uncensored story of what actually happens when you scale too fast and reality hits hard.

The Beginning ($0 to $15K MRR)

Fresh out of college, my best friend and I started a creator network after he was interning at a fast growing app company and dealing with creators daily. Found a client within 3 weeks, had no creators on our books. No fancy tech, just Google Sheets and hustle. Launched the campaign... First week: $3K. Second week: $5K. First month: $15K. We were running Instagram and Snapchat campaigns and killing it.

The Lucky Break ($15K to $200K MRR)

A client asked about TikTok. Ran a few campaigns here and there. Margin was good but it was way too early for TikTok. Started building relationships with creators and adde it as a separate offering. Then TikTok released a feature that changed everything. It basically allowed us to combine these 1 off campaigns with all the tech we'd built and the main part of our business. We moved fast – really fast. Hit $40K in a single week. Monthly revenue 5x'd. We thought we were geniuses. We were just lucky.

The High ($200K to $400K MRR)

  • Team grew to 20 people
  • Built networks of creators
  • Launched a creator house
  • Started working with major apps
  • Helped customers raise millions

I was 23. Working 12 hrs a day. Everything worked. Success is a dangerous drug when you're young enough to think it's normal.

The First Cracks

Then Apple killed app tracking and TikTok started to throttle organic reach. We had to pivot or die. We gave ourselves 6 weeks to turn things around across the whole company. Had to rebuild the entire business model, cut off whole projects and departments that weren't returning enough $$$, while making payroll for 20 people. We survived. Then thrived. Then...

The Pivot paid off!

We managed to grow even faster than before and things were going well. Retention was better than ever and things were compounding.

The Slow Death (2022)

  • Key clients started to get hit by recession and began mass layoffs
  • Sales cycles got longer
  • Top sales performer got arrested (yes, really - long story)
  • Tried to pivot again to a lower cost but high margin product - impossible to scale
  • Started missing revenue targets

The End (2023) The hardest part wasn't losing money. It was:

  • Laying off loyal team members who'd been with us for years
  • The self doubt in your abilities
  • Realizing we couldn't fight the market forever
  • Knowing when to stop throwing good money after bad

The Real Impact

In 5 years we:

  • Helped 2 startups raise $20M
  • Paid $3M to creators
  • Funded a creator's dad's heart surgery
  • Watched 3 of our former employees go onto start their own thriving businesses
  • Changed lives

Yet we still couldn't save ourselves.

Key Lessons

  1. Luck is definitely a factor but you also have to be prepared and ready, we got lucky so many times
  2. Focus on the money maker - the core part of the business making $$$ and then diversify out
  3. Understand the volatility of your market - ours changed so fast, we should done number 2 and then diversified quicker
  4. You have to keep innovating - times change and what you do may be hot today but tomorrow can easily not be - choose wisely and act accordingly
  5. Separate your identity from the business - the businesses success and failures are not a reflection of you - don't get too high and don't get too low.
  6. Don't make it easy to join the team, especially when scaling and things are going well - you need to scrutinise hiring decisions. Everyone needs to be a top performer and not just a great person. You can find both
  7. Make decisions early, with conviction - we could have taken certain actions or decisions earlier that could have changed our outcome or extended runway. It was our first time and we were slow to move - maybe it was naivety, maybe hope.
  8. Not everyone will like you - of course, when laying off people it's never easy and it's expected that some people won't take it well or may question decisions but you can't help this and you're not there to be liked.

Starting Over

I'm 28 now. Starting again in the TikTok/short form space - this time with:

  • Battle scars from a $7.5M business
  • Real experience, not just enthusiasm
  • Understanding of risk and market dynamics
  • Knowledge of what actually matters
  • A healthier relationship with success

For those building right now: The graphs don't always go up and right. Sometimes they crash. And that's okay. Building something that fails doesn't make you a failure.

Happy to answer any more questions or if you want to ask TikTok/influencer related questions just drop me a message.

EDIT: thank you for all the kind messages and support!! I’ll keep sharing updates - more info in my bio if you’re interested 🙏