Successful Startup Founders Share Their Most Memorable Moments

Startup journeys are anything but boring! Team members will confirm it, but startup founders will relate to this statement the best. From that a-ha moment, when they manage to identify a solution to a recurring problem, straight to the moment when their idea takes shape and makes its very first impact on people’s lives, every milestone they hit becomes a moment to remember.

It’s moments like these that make startup life so interesting and appealing to many enthusiastic entrepreneurs! Being able to come up with a business idea and then push through all those difficult times and obstacles just to see it happen, risking it all to make a difference in the world we live in, that’s the entrepreneurial thrill some people enjoy chasing!

Enough with the talk and the theory for now! Let us see what real entrepreneurs have to say about these moments. What were their achievements and what milestones did they manage to reach? What exactly made their moments memorable? What has managed to bring them the fulfillment they were seeking?

Getting The First Customer

When asked about his memorable moments in the Adopto adventure, a Croatian startup specialized in tech hiring, the CEO Mario Buntić answered that managing to bootstrap a highly competitive product without making any investments was definitely a moment of glory. Today, a large number of companies in their development process uses their product.

However, by far, their most memorable moment was the first milestone they reached – their first real user:

Besides that, the most memorable moment would be when the first real user created his account and logged in to our site. We were all so excited that we had to celebrate it with a cold beer. Soon after, even his boss created an account and we were watching everything through our support tool. It was such a mix of positive feelings.

ChillBill’s co-founder, Clemens Helm, is sharing the same view:

Getting the first customer is a thrilling experience every entrepreneur can relate to: It’s like you’ll always remember the moment when your child is born. This feeling that you’re solving a problem that others are willing to pay for. One of the greatest things as an entrepreneur is the feeling of being needed, the gratitude of your customers who never have to experience the problem anymore which you are solving.

Winning A Meaningful Recognition

Entrepreneurs are all competitors and winning is in their blood. Competition runs through their veins and there is no greater feeling than when their success is publicly recognized.

Anna Zalesak, the co-founder of HelloCash, a cloud service that can be used by companies as a cash register, said that for her a memorable moment would be every time an article on her startup was published. Nevertheless, the one that would really stand out would be winning the i2b Business Competition and being on the stage.

rais, a London based CRM software founded by Agata and Will Young, has also accomplished to win a government grant, which allowed them to develop their business, even more:

I knew we had a chance but it was an outside chance. To get that kind of endorsement was fantastic. It’s allowed us to expand our team and that is what this is all about. Creating jobs, creating value, doing something exciting.

Succeeding To Build Something Without Any Previous Experience

Memorable moments are not always about rainbows and sunshine. They also come from some more unpleasant circumstances, which, somehow, force entrepreneurs to get out of their comfort zone and adapt to the situation they are facing. At least, this is the case of HostedBy, a community marketplace specialized in offering private evening events all around the world.

Their most memorable moment? Here is what Julian Halder, one of the co-founders, had to say about it:

A little while ago, before we even had a prototype ready we were trying to get an investor on board so we could create a really cool prototype with a tech savvy person. As we don’t have development skills in the co-founder team, we had to pay someone to do it and the guy we really wanted to become our co-founder wanted some money and not only shares. So we got some slides ready and started to speak with people from our private network and we knew they have cash. We thought it was really successful because they all liked us and gave positive feedback. One guy even signed a deal for €50k with a handshake.

Eventually all of them dropped us for random reasons. The guy who didn’t keep his handshake argued that the €50k wouldn’t be sufficient and he wants to drop the deal because he was recommend so by his advisors. This was really frustrating because we were stuck. We didn’t have the money to pay for the prototype, so we ended up doing it by ourselves. We created our own DIY community marketplace.

Memorable moments in startups can be triggered by various causes. Some have a positive vibe, while others are a bit more challenging. Nonetheless, they are all great experiences to learn from. Reaching a milestone or making the best out of an unexpected situation, will definitely be worth remembering for the years that are about to come.

What was the most memorable moment from your startup experience? Can you point out exactly the time when you felt that all your efforts in building your startup are finally getting paid off?

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