Recent startup failure was ZguideZ - an app that allowed locals to create their own digital tours, charge what they want, and then collect the majority of the profit on tours sold.
It failed because it was a far bigger project than I was able to manage as a solo founder - though I tried. It was beyond my ability to code it and I didn't have funding to recruit quality developers. I hired a budget team and we cut corners to stay in budget. I was unsuccessful in recruiting a team - partly because I had taken on a cofounder who decided he would rather surf than work on the business development end of our product - without a founder agreement, he was dead weight that scared investors and potential team mates away. In desperation for help, I began working with a veteran who had recently separated from Army intelligence - he had undisclosed mental issues and when our business plan was made a finalist in a university bizplan competition, he accused me of being a spy sent to retrieve classified information from him and sabotaged our meetings with investors, potential hires, and the competition administrators. He withdrew us from the competition and sent out insane accusatory emails to our bankers and advisors.
I attempted to carry on but the shutdowns of tourism in Hawaii and sheer exhaustion over my co-founder mistakes led to shuttering this project we thought would be the next AirBnB.
All told, this was a budget MBA program for me which ended up costing about 1/4 what a quality MBA would have cost me and probably taught me far more.
Lessons learned were:
1) the importance of a founder agreement
2) the importance of doing enough due diligence to understand the true scope of a project and then doubling or tripling the amount of work it will take to achieve that scope
3) the importance of working with the right people and refusing to settle when it comes to product or team
> I had taken on a cofounder who decided he would rather surf than work on the business development end of our product - without a founder agreement, he was dead weight that scared investors and potential team mates away
This is, unfortunately, very common in startup communities. There are a lot of people who attach themselves to startups, discover that they're not interested in putting in the work required, and then decide to coast as long as possible when they realize it's not so easy for their partners to cut them out.
These people are often very charismatic and are experts at inflating their previous credentials. Always do a deep dive on potential cofounders' backgrounds, including backchannel references. Always establish cofounder agreements and, most importantly, at least a 1-year vesting cliff on any equity, no matter how much you like the other person. If they aren't pulling their weight at the 9-12 month mark, do everything to remove them from the company before they have any vested equity.
> In desperation for help, I began working with a veteran who had recently separated from Army intelligence - he had undisclosed mental issues and when our business plan was made a finalist in a university bizplan competition, he accused me of being a spy sent to retrieve classified information from him and sabotaged our meetings with investors, potential hires, and the competition administrators. He withdrew us from the competition and sent out insane accusatory emails to our bankers and advisors.
Mental illness is also, sadly, disproportionately represented in startup communities. I think it's a combination of factors: People who suffer from certain untreated mental illnesses like you describe are more likely to be unable to maintain a normal career, so they seek out alternative career paths like startups where they don't technically have to report to a manager. Certain mental illnesses can also come with bouts of grandiose thoughts, delusions of grandeur, a penchant for risk-taking, and other traits that can easily be confused for confident, ambitious startup personalities.
This is a perfect example of the importance of operating agreements and vesting cliffs, as well as due diligence on anyone you might go into business with.
AirBnB has something like that called "Experiences." I'm not saying that to be critical; if anything it should be affirmation that you were onto something, i.e. there really is a market for such things.
Definitely a market for it. Another Hawaii company, Shaka Guides has a similar concept though with voice-actor recorded tours and they seem to be doing well. Our concept was to have locals sharing their history and knowledge on a self-guiding tour.
AirBNB Experiences is things like "Come swimming with dolphins" or "come on a wine tour".
This idea seems more like the voice-guided tours you can get in museums etc but creating a market for them. It's probably a decent idea, but possibly complementary rather than competitive with what AirBNB is doing.
The idea of running it through a pair of AR sunglasses is wild! We were doing it strictly on smartphones - some of the biggest headaches came as a result of Apple's App Store process - we had to rework everything and since the back end was independent that meant we had to rework the android version as well.
> due diligence on anyone you might go into business with.
> importance of operating agreements and vesting cliffs
I'd argue it's more important to work with someone you've worked with in the past and know you can trust and will work hard. The operating agreements and due diligence are there for the worst case scenario, but from your story it seems pretty clear they were questionable co-founders to start with.
I think this was a great idea btw, sorry that it didn't work out. Before covid I always used to try and find audio walking tours for cities, and alternative ones to the normally rather dry official ones for museums, but there really isn't much out there.
Really powerful experience that I am grateful for (though I wish my hair would grow back - lol). At the moment working on a much more manageable project with a great team (Iwahai.com) and maybe in the future there will be an opportunity to revisit the ZguideZ concept. I still love the idea, but managing a worldwide network of independent guides is more than I want to take on at the moment.
It failed because it was a far bigger project than I was able to manage as a solo founder - though I tried. It was beyond my ability to code it and I didn't have funding to recruit quality developers. I hired a budget team and we cut corners to stay in budget. I was unsuccessful in recruiting a team - partly because I had taken on a cofounder who decided he would rather surf than work on the business development end of our product - without a founder agreement, he was dead weight that scared investors and potential team mates away. In desperation for help, I began working with a veteran who had recently separated from Army intelligence - he had undisclosed mental issues and when our business plan was made a finalist in a university bizplan competition, he accused me of being a spy sent to retrieve classified information from him and sabotaged our meetings with investors, potential hires, and the competition administrators. He withdrew us from the competition and sent out insane accusatory emails to our bankers and advisors.
I attempted to carry on but the shutdowns of tourism in Hawaii and sheer exhaustion over my co-founder mistakes led to shuttering this project we thought would be the next AirBnB.
All told, this was a budget MBA program for me which ended up costing about 1/4 what a quality MBA would have cost me and probably taught me far more.
Lessons learned were: 1) the importance of a founder agreement 2) the importance of doing enough due diligence to understand the true scope of a project and then doubling or tripling the amount of work it will take to achieve that scope 3) the importance of working with the right people and refusing to settle when it comes to product or team