In last years there is a big hype around startups in Europe. Startups are innovative companies with a big potential for growth (in fact, definitions of startup differ – e.g. Eric Ries, Paul Graham, …). In order to benefit from startups potential as much as possible and to protect startups from fading out early, there are accelerators and investors. All of them are prepared for the fact that only 1 out of 10 cases succeeds.
I have also joined this madness when I found one day that I do not enjoy being an employee anymore. I wanted to create bigger values. Enterprise is not strongly rooted in my family so I was rather inspired by more distant models.
I have to admit that at least for the first half a year I struggled with problems that probably many former employees experience when they start running their own business:
- work from home gradually became very inefficient,
- I was constantly switching from one idea to another without real accomplishments,
- I suffered a lot from people asking me questions about my work. For some reason, everyone around me expected that I will start earning money immediately.
However, the biggest problem was an absence of a team and any useful contacts and relations in general. Therefore, when I discovered the Italian startup program Techpeaks I did not hesitate, because surprisingly, it was accepting individuals too. After approximately 20 tries I finished a motivation video (I helped myself by a shot of whisky after the 16th try) and applied for participation. One month passed and I received an acceptance message.
This way I have definitively dived into a world of startups and so I would like to share experience I am gathering here everyday. Not to boast, but to provide inspiration and to help readers to avoid mistakes I made.